:::::::g::g::;x:x:,V:^|i;||^^ 


^^^^^^^Sl^^iWi 


1 •' A l^S OKI SON DRY FARMING 

i -'. J\ , J J , J \ f,i \i j\ )j> 






























GofpglitJj". 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Parsons on Dry Farming 



Parsons on Dry Farming 



A Collection of Articles Written by 
E. R. Parsons and Published in 
The Dakota Farmer, Aberdeen, 
S. D., during 1912 and 1913 



-VJS» 



The Dakota Farmer 

Aberdeen, S. D. 

1913 



-St^ 



o 



f^x 



Copyright 19 13 
The Bushnell Co. 



dM ~5 /9/4 



CI.A361479' 



Contents 

Page 
Introduction 1 1 

Chapter I 
Deep Plowing ^7 

Chapter II 
Reasons for Deep Plowing 23 

Chapter III 
Practical Work of Deep Plowing , 29 

Chapter IV 
For and Against Deep Plowing 3^ 

Chapter V 
Cultivating and Mulching 44 

Chapter VI 
Subsoil Moisture 52 

Chapter VII 
Dry Farm FertiHzing 60 

Chapter VIII 

Packing and Fallowing 7^ 

Chapter IX 

Roots and Subsoils 79 

Chapter X 
The First Year on a Dry Farm 89 

Chapter XI 
Keep Track of Moisture 97 

Chapter XII 
Dry Farming for Profit 10^ 



Contents — Continued 

Chapter XIII Page 

Suggestions for Dry Farmers 115 

Chapter XIV 
Seed Selection and Corn Breeding 123 

Chapter XV 
Listing Corn on the Dry Farm 133 

Chapter XVI 
Winter Wheat on the Dry Farm 139 

Chapter XVII 
35 Years With Dry Farm Alfalfa 146 

Chapter XVIII 
Amber Cane, Milo, Kaffir Corn, Broom Corn 153 

Chapter XIX 
Rye, Oats, Barley, Emmer, Speltz 155 

Chapter XX 
Dry Land Flax 159 

Chapter XXI 
Potatoes on the Dry Farm 160 

Chapter XXII 
Beans, Peanuts, Millet, Peas 163 

Chapter XXIII 
Vines, Root Crops, Sugar Beets 166 

Chapter XXIV 
The Dry Farm Garden 169 

Chapter XXV 
Dry Farm Horticulture 172 

Chapter XXVI 
Forestry in the Arid Regions 181 



Illustrations 

Page 
E. R. Parsons 17 

Root Growth in Shallow Seed Bed 48 

Root Growth of Corn in Deep Seed Bed Such as 

May be Found on Deep-Tilled Land 64 

Showing Effect of Top Growth in Deep and 
Shallow Seed Beds. Seed in Each Box 
Sown at Same Date 80 

High Altitude Corn Land Plowed 12 Inches 
Deep on Farm of E. R. Parsons, Colorado 
— 6,000 Feet 96 

Winter Wheat, May ist, on Sod Broken 8 Inches, 
5 Inches and 3 Inches Deep. Note the 
Excellent Growth Made on the 8-Inch 
Breaking 112 

Orchard of Yellow Transparent on the Dry Farm 
of E. R. Parsons, Eastern Colorado. Aver- 
age Rainfall 14 or 15 Inches 128 

Ben Davis Orchard on the Farm of E. R. 

Parsons, Colorado 144 

Dry Farm Flower Bed and Silver Poplars, E. R. 

Parsons' Farm 160 

Locust Trees on Dry Farm of E. R. Parsons, 

Eastern Colorado 176 



Introduction 

TO produce profitable crops under a limited rain- 
fall, it becomes necessary for the farmer to 
possess a thorough knowledge of the principles 
and practices of soil moisture conservation. A very 
large portion of The Dakota Farmer Empire comes 
under the classification of semi-arid land. 

That a wider distribution may be given of 
facts relating to the actual practices of dry farming 
and the compiling of these in more convenient form 
is the reason for the publication of this book. It is a 
reprint of a series of articles written by Mr. E. R. 
Parsons for The Dakota Farmer and published in its 
columns during 1912 and 1913. 

For many years The Dakota Farmer has been 
keenly on the lookout for men who have most success- 
fully overcome the obstacles of farming in dry areas. 
There are many of these men. They have blazed the 
way to profitable farming and better living in all the 
great northwest. It is for us to follow where they 
lead. 

Of these men, Mr. Parsons, by virtue of his splen- 
did scientific training, his tenacity of purpose and his 
forty years of practical experience stands out as the 
premier exponent of practical dry farming in America. 

With his knowledge of the subject is coupled the 
gift to impart it to others in a style as entertaining as 
it is characteristic. 

Mr. Parsons is an original thinker and investi- 
gator. He has not been bound by precedent or hoary 
theories. He has successfully worked out the problems 
of profitable crop production on his own lands and 
under an average annual precipitation of fifteen inches. 

The reader will be interested in knowing more of 
the man Parsons and what he has accomplished. He 



12 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

was born in England in 1854. His education was prin- 
cipally along scientific lines. A few years after leaving 
college he went to South Africa and engaged in dry 
farming. The precipitation ran from 10 to 20 inches. 
He found the settlers raising small crops on 4- and 5- 
inch plowing, using four oxen to the plow. Parsons put 
eight oxen on his plow and began to raise double what 
the neighbors did. The principal crops at that time 
were oats for horse forage, cut in the dough, barley, 
potatoes and corn fodder. 

But let Parsons tell his own story. He can do it 
better than we can : 

"I purchased some lucern seed (alfalfa) to test it 
for that country. Nobody there could get a stand, but 
it was raised in the wet districts farther north. I found 
the trouble was shallow plowing. Put ten oxen onto 
the plow, got it down 10 inches, obtained a magnificent 
stand of alfalfa first try. Got a herd of mixed stock for 
dairy farming and sold milk for 25 cents a quart bottle. 
The natives which could be hired for a few dollars a 
month, and all the corn meal they could eat, did all the 
work carrying the milk and other produce to town in 
baskets and selling it. Did well there until 1877, when 
I sold out and volunteered for the Zulu war. 

"Left for England after the war and came to Colo- 
rado in 1880. Rented a ranch to try out dry farming, 
raised large crops of seed corn and navy beans, which 
brought the top of the market in Denver. Could not 
persuade anyone they were raised without irrigation, 
either had to shut up or lose my reputation for veracity. 

'Tn 1883 took a trip to California, found them rais- 
ing fruit and everything on 20 inches of rainfall and 
sometimes only 10. 

"Noted that the Portugese and Italians were plant- 
ing grape vine cuttings on the dry hillsides of Los 
Angeles where they considered themselves lucky if 
they got 13 inches of rainfall. These cuttings were 



INTRODUCTION 13 

2 feet long and put down in the ground until only 
about 3 inches stuck out. After the wet season was 
over nearly 90 per cent would be growing vines. Some 
of these vineyards are still alive and producing four to 
five tons per acre. Came back to Colorado in 1886, and 
homesteaded. This was the beginning of my Parker 
ranch 20 miles south of Denver. Purchased a big 
team in Denver and started to break land 9 inches 
deep, sometimes getting over only one-half an acre 
a day. 

Deep Plowing Was a Joke. 

"Neighbors would come over and josh about it, 
which I rather enjoyed, leading them on and asking 
their opinion about things. 

"Next year the joke was all on my side, for the 
corn grew 8 feet high and the grain outweighed the 
fodder, something which none of them had ever seen 
before. The wheat was 5 feet high and some of the 
rye 7. That fall I bought cows and hogs, also some 
stands of bees, and the next spring I put in five acres 
of alfalfa. 

Hogs and Poultry Paid. 

"I had already planted a family orchard, giving 
everything plenty of room. The hogs ran to the rye 
stacks all winter and with the help of a little corn and 
alfalfa I was enabled to sell hogs every month or so 
at from 10 to 20 dollars apiece. We fed the chickens 
all the wheat they could eat at night and mashes in 
the morning; hauling bones off the prairie for dessert. 
The chickens (about 100) almost paid the grocery bill. 
There were no creameries in those days, so we sold our 
butter in town. We had the usual luck with stock; 
the horses were struck by lightning, the best cows 
would hunt mud holes and commit suicide, the calves 
would try to get colic or diarrhea, the bees would get 
foul brood and the cat would have fits. As soon as we 
began to feed the cows alfalfa their suicidal tendencies 



14 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

vanished, they began to have more confidence in dry 
ranching, raised calves and attended strictly to busi- 
ness. We cleaned out the foul brood and shut the cat 
up during the grasshopper season. 

"I often regretted I did not keep books, but we 
were absolutely too busy; but every time we went to 
town we took in a load of hogs or butter or honey or 
veal or something, and every few years we bought 
some land until our ranch grew from i6o acres to 1200. 

Developed a High Altitude Com. 

"I took the White Australian seed corn as a basis, 
crossing it gradually with large white eastern varieties, 
using them as the male parent until I had an accli- 
mated, high altitude corn which would go with deep 
plowing over 40 bushels to the acre at 6,000 feet. I 
was always able to sell all the seed of this corn I could 
raise. I am not raising this for seed now ; I have too 
many other things to do, but if anyone wishes to try it 
they can obtain it from its chief Colorado raiser, Frank 
J. Kohler, (altitude 6,300 feet). 

Kept Increasing Alfalfa Area. 

"Every few years I planted more and more alfalfa. 
I raise it on sandy loam, adobe and gulch sand. I took 
the precaution, however, to fertilize the gulch sand 
with about fifty loads of manure to the acre before 
planting ; this paid me well, because nothing else would 
grow on it, but the alfalfa took hold, got down to 
moisture after three years, and converted a desolate 
sand bar into a beautiful field. The larger part of my 
alfalfa is grown, however, on hillsides above dry clay 
reefs with no water at 100 feet that we know of. 

Planted Commercial Orchard. 
"In 1894 I commenced planting an orchard, and 
have now nearly twenty acres in apples, cherries, 
plums and currants. I have never seen the sour cher- 
ries grow better or bear handsomer fruit anywhere. 



INTRODUCTION 15 

The profits from this orchard, with every other year 
or more a bad year cHmatically, runs into thousands. 
I never ship anything, the people come from four coun- 
ties to get the fruit* to put up for winter. Mr. N. P. 
Gould, Pomologist U. S. Department of Agriculture, 
writes of my Ben Davis apples : 'Incidentally I am 
glad to state that these apples are very interesting to 
us. I do not know that I have seen fully matured Ben 
Davis apples from a dry land orchard before. I had 
rather expected that grown under dry land conditions, 
the texture would be more woody and the flavor even 
flatter than is common with the Ben Davis, but this 
does not appear to be the case. The texture compares 
favorably with apples grown in definitely recognized 
Ben Davis regions, and as to dessert quality, as already 
indicated, it seems to me that it is unusually high for 
the variety.' 

Forty Years of Dry Farming Experience. 

"Thus far I have been dry farming for close on 
forty years ; it is the only branch of agriculture that I 
have got to the bottom of, and that only by persistent 
work and experiment in odd moments and Sundays. 
The most useful implement I have for this purpose is 
the soil auger. With this I can bring up a sample of 
dirt from any depth in the subsoil and by making note 
of the percentage of moisture at different depths, can 
ascertain what amount of water is held by any cubic 
block of land; what the moisture is doing; whether it 
is moving or standing still ; increasing or fading away. 
By comparing the moisture in a vacant block with that 
in a block occupied by a tree I can calculate the amount 
used up by that tree ; the same method can be applied 
to any plant or crop. 

Always An Investigator. 

"I also find a microscope a very useful adjunct for 
research work. My operations have all been based on 
a knowledge of what is and what isn't; have never 



i6 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

been much impressed by fads or the systems of men 
who guess at things. A single dry year does not 
bother me at all, but a second one does. My worst 
year was in 191 1, with only 6 inches of moisture. The 
year before was 9 and the roots left only about 8 to 
10% of moisture in the subsoil. In order to get the 
late corn and sorghum started in 191 1 we had to plow 
furrows down to the damp soil and plant in the bottom 
of them. The feed crops averaged only about a ton to 
the acre ; the neighbors had nothing. The principal 
factors in my success have been my complete mastery 
of the art of plowing, and the interest I take naturally 
in all branches of science. Beside my ranch at Parker, 
Colorado, I have two dry farms in California, where I 
find that infinite variety in the vegetable world so 
fascinating to the student of nature." 

Mr. Parsons is an active member of the Interna- 
tional Dry Farming Congress, the Royal Agricultural 
Society of England and the National Geographical 
Society, Washington, D. C. 



THE DAKOTA FARMER pos- 
sesses an abiding faith in the 
future of this great Northwest. 
It sincerely believes that the intelli- 
gent application of the known best 
methods of soil moisture storage and 
conservation to the fertile lands of the 
Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming will 
insure a prosperous country and a 
land of contented and happy people. 




E. R. Parsons. 



Parsons on Dry Farming 



CHAPTER I 

Deep Plowing 

THERE is only one solution to the problem of 
how to dry farm and always raise crops. 
Plow deep. Those who go under are the ones 
who persist in dodging the issue. 

There is no doubt that crops can be made in wet 
years by plowing only four or five inches, packing the 
ground solid and then cultivating all summer to loosen 
it up again, but does it pay? 

Those who indulge in this style of surface farming 
usually pay out in dry years every cent they make in 
wet years for the grocery bill and to keep their stock 
alive. Intensive cultivation may to some extent coun- 
teract the evil effects of shallow plowing but can never 
fully compensate for lack of deep tilling at the start. 

For instance, a crop of corn planted in land 
plowed 12 inches deep and cultivated two or three 
times will yield twice as much as the one planted on a 
6-inch seed bed and cultivated all summer. This is 
where economy comes in, for every operation in the 
field is so much to the expense account. 

When a farmer defends shallow plowing, his own 
field will always give him away, for the best grain, the 
finest corn, is always found where the plow went in 
the deepest or the prairie dogs did some subsoiling. 

Why should a man spade his garden a foot deep 
and then go out and plow 6 inches? Can anybody 
explain the philosophy of such proceedings? 



i8 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

When a gardener wishes to raise a large plant in 
the green-house, would he put it in a 6-inch pot or a 
3-inch? 

We have never been able yet to find a soil or a 
country where deep plowing did not pay, and the drier 
the country the deeper the plowing. How is it that 
an old soil in use for hundreds of years in Belgium, 
France, England, Germany and other countries can 
double and treble our average yield per acre? The 
principal reason is because they plow from 9 to 15 
and sometimes 20 inches, while we think we are doing 
wonders if we scratch the ground 6. 

One of our great sugar factories pondered over 
the fact that while Germany and Hungary were rais- 
ing from 15 to 30 tons of beets to the acre, our farmers 
with virgin soil and abundance of irrigation were rais- 
ing only 10. They sent all the way to Germany for 
an expert, and when he arrived this is what he said: 
"How can you expect to raise a 12-inch beet on 6-inch 
plowing?" 

Why is Standard So Low? 

Why is our standard of plowing so low? Because 
those farmers who first went west from the coast 
states lost the art of plowing in the middle west where 
crops planted in the richest of virgin soil and rained 
on every few days would grow whether the land was 
plowed or not. Therefore to find good plowing we 
must hark back to the old New England states where 
the conditions were not so favorable. Connecticut is 
probably the deepest plowing state of any and having 
a cool climate is by nature not as well adapted to corn 
raising as any of the central or river states ; yet ac- 
cording to the U. S. Department of Agriculture we 
find that last year it averaged per acre, 48 bushels of 
corn, against 14 in Kansas, 26 in Missouri, and so on. 
In 1910, these averages were 53 for Connecticut, 19 for 
Kansas, 33 for Missouri. 



DEEP PLOWING 19 

Wherever deep plowing is introduced into the 
west, we always meet with the same objections as fan- 
tastic as they are absurd. It will ruin the soil. Our 
subsoil is too hard. We have to plow it very carefully 
and very shallow to get the Indian out of the soil. 
(This from Montana.) The subsoil is no good, it 
comes up in lumps. If we plow it, we can never pack 
it and if we pack it we can never plow it. The subsoil 
is sour and poisonous and hard besides; better leave 
it alone. We have a different soil in this state, you dare 
not plow it deep. 

This last objection, of course, is the greatest non- 
sense of all. No state or district has a monopoly of 
any wonderful variety of soil that cannot be plowed. 
As the Germans say, a soil which will not respond to 
deep plowing is not an agricultural soil and we might 
add to this certainly not a dry farm soil. There is no 
such body of soil that anyone in the west has ever 
heard of yet, although a few, very few, such streaks 
might possibly be found where the joint clay or 
gopher clay comes too close to the surface, but such 
odds and ends can be left for pasture. 
Soils Ready for the Plow. 

Since the great water period thousands or millions 
of years ago which provided the foundation for our 
upper layers, the soil has thoroughly dried out and 
the space originally occupied by water is now taken 
up by air, which sometimes represents as much as 
50% of the bulk in a cube of dirt. The consequence is 
our soils are sweet and ready for the plow ; we have 
no sour lands, no wildness or Indian to get out. This 
is an imported idea belonging to the waterlogged 
lands of the eastern states and has no place whatever 
in dry farming. Some of the largest crops I have ever 
made, and I have made many in the last 35 years, have 
come off sod broken a foot deep. The upper layers of 
our soils in Dakota and other adjoining states are 



20 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

many of them glacial drift which is fair soil and can be 
plowed any depth, but above these boulder clays we 
sometimes have a foot or two or even more of humus 
wash loam, the richest and finest of soil for small 
grain and corn. These soils can be plowed any depth ; 
if the subsoil is hard, a subsoiler can be used, but get 
down at any cost ; it will pay in the end. Deep tilling, 
turning up and working the whole thing, is better than 
plowing a few inches and then subsoiling, but subsoil- 
ing will open up the soil for the deep tilling later on, 
in case of a very hard subsoil. 

As we go farther west we encounter the light ash 
and lava soils as they are called and wherever there is 
a good growth of sage brush cleared oflF, these soils 
are immensely rich. 

Many a man is grubbing along on such a soil 
plowing 3 or 4 inches and half starving his family 
because he does not know that if he understood the 
value of plowing he could raise 6o bushels to the acre 
instead of lo in wet years and probably a good 25 
in dry years. 

Some of the adobe soils are rich ; some are not ; 
it depends on their origin. The farmers call every- 
thing sticky, adobe or gumbo. The joint clays which 
sometimes come to the surface belong to the cretace- 
ous period when there was little or no organic matter 
to afford humus and are consequently of little value 
for agriculture. The glacial boulder clays, however, 
out of which much of our reddish brown and chocolate- 
colored adobes seemed to be formed, are rich in min- 
eral plant food and when the sod is plowed under deep 
will contain a fair amount of humus. 

These lands need deep plowing in the fall to allow 
of weathering, deep breaking to save the humus and 
plenty of working. Corn and grain crops do not grow 
as high as they will on a sandy loam, but the corn is 
usually larger and the grain heads heavier. The best 



DEEP PLOWING 21 

and most practical method of tilling these lands will 
be given in an article later on. Many failures in deep 
plowing occur from plowing when the ground is half 
dry and then planting it before it has a chance to settle 
and acquire moisture. In dry farming, land should 
never be planted immediately after plowing. 

If you do not give the rains a chance to drive the 
air out, the crop will burn out every time. If you 
cannot plow in the fall, then plow your corn and sor- 
ghum land in March and your winter wheat land in 
May, then no packing will be necessary except in the 
seed row and the press drill or planter wheels will do 
that. The idea of buying an expensive packer when 
nature can do it for you is absurd. On the other hand 
if you are bound to plant the land anyway as soon as 
plowed, then harrow and disc alternately until fairly 
solid, but it is always advisable to fallow the land if 
only for a few weeks or a month or two. In dry farm- 
ing we need air on the surface for weathering soil and 
developing plant food, but not in the ground, for a dry 
over aerated soil is the most deadly enemy of dry 
farm crops. A good rule to follow if you raise small 
grain is this : Plow in the fall for spring grain and in 
the spring for fall grain. 

For corn, plow deep in the fall and leave it rough 
to weather and accumulate moisture all winter, then 
work up deep and thoroughly before listing or plant- 
ing in May or June. 

Little Excuse for Poor Plowing. 

There is really very little excuse for poor plowing 
in the west for our soils are admirably adapted to deep 
plowing. 

The glacial epoch has given us an extra layer of 
good soil exactly where we most need it and for this 
reason the great bulk of our land can be plowed almost 
any' depth which is the most important factor in dry 
farming. The secret of obtaining a heavy crop on dry 



22 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

farm land is to root the crops deeply in the subsoil. 
This can be done in one way only, by keeping it wet 
enough so that the roots can enter. If you plow lo or 
12 inches the adjoining subsoil will be better protected 
and much damper than when you plow only 6 inches ; 
in fact, on many shallow plowed fields the roots never 
get below the top 6 inches and the crop amounts to 
little or nothing. 

In deep ground the subsoil is always in condition, 
for under a seed bed, lo or I2 inches deep, the evapor- 
ation is almost nil, and once the water is absorbed into 
the subsoil it stays there until the crops take it out. 
If every dry farmer in the west were to increase his 
depth of plowing from 6 to I2 inches, the railroads 
could not haul the stuff. 



CHAPTER II 

Reasons for Deep Plowing 

DRY farming has been styled *'The Conservation 
of Moisture." It should be styled ''The Accu- 
mulation and Conservation of Moisture." 

You cannot conserve anything that you do not 
have, therefore the prevention of run-ofif, puddles and 
surface evaporation generally, together with the prep- 
aration of the ground for quick absorption may be 
termed the accumulation of moisture, the first half of 
dry farming. 

The principal factor in accumulation is deep plow- 
ing; the principal factor in conservation is mulching. 

Why does deep plowing accumulate more moisture 
than shallow plowing? For the same reason that a bar- 
rel will catch more rain than a bucket ; the receptacle is 
larger — 12 inches will hold twice as much water as 6. 

The subsoil takes water very slowly because it is 
solid and compact and the interstitial spaces are small, 
therefore, during heavy rains, as soon as the plowed 
soil is soaked down to the subsoil it begins to run off 
or to form puddles. This is what we want to prevent, 
and there is only one way to do it. Plow deeper and 
increase the depth of the seed bed. 

It might be argued that there is seldom enough 
moisture to waterlog a field plowed 6 inches, but we 
find that nearly every year there is one such instance 
and sometimes two. When a field already contains 
moisture from previous showers, the torrential rains 
of July and August will very soon soak it to the limit, 
and the same may be said of the soft, wet snows of 
spring, when the precipitation of four or five weeks 
has been known to amount to 4 or 5 inches which 
would very easily soak up a seed bed of 15 inches. 



24 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

We cannot afford to lose a single inch of this 
water ; for the rest of the year may be dry ! Thus we 
see that this function of deep plowed land, that of 
quickly absorbing torrential rains or excessive snow- 
fall is a most important one in dry farming. 
Moisture in Subsoil. 

Another function of the deeply plowed seed bed 
never touched upon by agriculturists is that of acting 
as a mulch to the subsoil. The old idea that plants 
lived on the top soil and the moisture came up out of 
the subsoil to supply their roots has long since been 
abandoned by sane agriculturists, for we find that 
water in the subsoil stays where it is put, and that 
under 12-inch plowing, after making several hundred 
tests in all varieties of soil, the loss seldom exceeds 
1% a month and in some cases is almost nil. This, of 
course, is on fallow land with no crop growing. 

In order to be thoroughly satisfied on these 
points, the farmer should make his own experiments 
and not trust to the say-so of anyone who may be 
quoting some laboratory experiments which do not 
apply, or some out-of-date college book of the days of 
Johnston and Liebig. 

It is a very simple matter with a ground auger 
or even a pick and shovel to get a sample of soil at 
any time at any depth, then weigh it and bake the 
moisture out of it and weigh it again. The difference 
in weight will, of course, show the amount of moisture 
it originally contained, and by making different tests 
at separate dates at a variety of depths, a correct esti- 
mate can be formed of what the water in the soil is 
doing. The farmer will soon find out that one experi- 
ment in the field is worth a dozen in the laboratory, 
and by this means will become acquainted with natural 
physics at first hand. 

The advantage of deep plowing to mulch the sub- 
soil is found in the fact that when it is kept moist and 



REASONS FOR DEEP PLOWING 25 

in proper condition, the roots of crops will go into it 
from two to ten feet. 

From tests in the field we find that the normal 
length of the roots of small grain is from 3 to 4 feet, 
of corn from 3 to 10 feet, but in 6-inch plowing, in a 
dry year, when the subsoil is not properly mulched, 
the roots do not penetrate it at all, for it is too dry, 
and we often have this spectacle of man trying to raise 
a crop on 6 inches which needs 4 feet. Is it any won- 
der he fails? 

Packing will not help him, cultivating day and 
night and Sundays will not help him, and the only 
satisfaction he can get is to join the chorus of wails 
about the crust under the mulch, which, by the way, 
cannot injure his crops if he plows deeply and main- 
tains a loose mulch on the surface. 

The surface farmer who plows 6 inches or less 
and pulls off medium crops in wet years by dint of 
excessive cultivation, and then pays out in the dry 
years what he made in the wet ones, often wonders 
why a few inches of rain makes such a tremendous 
difference to him, while the crops of his neighbor, 
who plows 10 or 12 inches, always seem to be good. 

The reason is, in a wet year his subsoil becomes 
wet enough for crops, for the roots to penetrate ; in a 
dry it does not; hence the difference, but the subsoil 
of his neighbor, who plows deep, is always in con- 
dition, for it carries over moisture from one year to 
another. 

From the foregoing it can be readily understood 
that dry farm crops are made largely from the subsoils. 

Extraordinary, you say. This gives me altogether 
a new idea of dry farming, but are our subsoils good 
enough for this? 

Subsoils Rich. 

They most assuredly are, for in western America 
we find the best and richest subsoils almost of the 



26 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

world, and they can be worked by any man, or at least 
by any man that is a man, for with our 20th century 
implements we can break up anything but solid rock. 

Hardness in a subsoil does not necessarily imply 
lack of fertility ; shale and argillaceous deposits formed 
from pre-historic river mud, when fined down and 
weathered, may raise magnificent crops. Without 
deep plowing it is almost impossible to raise satisfac- 
tory crops in a dry year, and without crops in a dry 
year it is foolish to imagine that dry farming can be 
made to pay. The philosophy of it is this : When the 
farmer plows 6 inches and cultivates his row-crops 3 
inches deep, he has then 3 inches of mulch, leaving 3 
for the surface roots. After three or four weeks dry 
weather the mulch becomes dried out, then if the 
drouth continues, the dirt under the mulch begins to 
dry and form a crust. Then comes the question, how 
much soil is left for surface roots? 

The plowing was 6 inches, take off 3 for the mulch 
and I or 2 more for the crust under the mulch. This 
leaves about i inch for the surface roots. Is it any 
wonder crops dry out with 6-inch plowing? 

The farmer, however, who plows 12 inches will 
have seven inches left for the roots of his crop, and 
under these conditions no drouth can crowd them, for 
after the first 5 inches are dry, the drouth line deepens 
very slowly indeed. 

Deep Seed Bed Important. 

A deep seed bed for the surface roots is a most 
important item in raising a heavy crop. The surface, 
or rather the top foot contains, as a rule, most of the 
humus, and it is the humus which supplies a large 
proportion of ready-made plant food, therefore, a deep 
seed bed means quick and luxuriant growth. Another 
point we must not lose sight of is that the quicker 
the roots get down the less danger there is from 
drouth injury. 



REASONS FOR DEEP PLOWING 27 

The tap roots which go into the subsoil supply 
the plant with moisture and mineral plant food, but 
the surface roots which exploit the seed bed find all 
elements necessary to plant life, particularly the nitro- 
gen, which, owing to the habits of the nitrifying bac- 
teria is found principally in the top 8 or 9 inches. 
Land plowed 10 or 12 inches holds its tilth much 
longer than shallow land, and is often mellow and 
loose on the surface at maturing time which is a tre- 
mendous advantage at the period of the plumping up 
and filling of grain. 

Shallow land settles, runs together, cracks and 
bakes very easily, requiring constant cultivation to 
keep it in condition, and many a crop planted on such 
land which made vigorous growth at the start and 
promised a heavy yield dried up instead of ripening, 
yielding a little shriveled grain in the place of a boun- 
tiful harvest. 

After land has been plowed deeply for several sea- 
sons, one dry year makes very little difference to 
crops, but a second, following on the heels of the first, 
is a more or less serious matter, and may cut the crops 
a fourth or a half, according to the quantity of mois- 
ture it has been possible to store in the subsoil. 

Two of the driest consecutive years ever experi- 
enced on my ranch were 1893-94. In 1893 our crops 
were very little below the average. In the spring of 
1894 the surface was so dry it was almost impossible 
to start the crops, and in order to get down to moist 
dirt we had to plow out the corn rows and plant the 
corn (after soaking it) in the wet subsoil at the bottom 
of the furrow. By this means we obtained a good 
stand, and with about 2^ inches precipitation during 
the growing season we made a fair crop, but not so 
good as 1893. 

There was a little snow which raised the moisture 
content of the upper subsoil to about 15% by planting 



28 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

time, but below this there was 3 feet of moist subsoil 
containing from 10% to 12% only. 

The 2^ inches of rainfall came in moderate show- 
ers without reaching the subsoil, but was of great 
advantage in moistening up the seed bed. 

Thus we see that without the subsoil moisture 
accumulated and conserved by deep plowing, it would 
have been utterly impossible to have raised any corn 
in that year ; in fact, none was raised by the old meth- 
ods of plowing 6 or 7 inches. 

Dry Farming Not New. 

Although dry farming is supposed to be a new 
thing, it is actually as old as the earth, and in western 
America dates back to the original settlers. There are 
many who have made their fortunes at it, although 
few hear about them, but these men were all and every 
one deep plowers. One of the most noted of these is 
G. L. Farrel, of Smithfield, Utah, who, on an average 
precipitation of 15 inches, raises 400 acres of wheat 
every year which goes from 40 to 45 bushels per acre. 

There are hundreds of others around him, who, 
on the same land, raise 20, but he plows 9 inches and 
subsoils down to 15, while they plow 6 or 7, put in a 
much larger acreage and in dry years get nothing. 

In Montana we have Norman Holden, of Dillon, 
who plows from 8 to 12 inches and raises 250 bushels 
of potatoes to the acre. 

In the dry streak in the south last year a boy 
succeeded in raising 202 bushels of corn to the acre on 
old played-out land by plowing 20 inches deep and 
fertilizing in the row. 



CHAPTER III 

Practical Work of Deep Plowing 

WHAT is the best depth to plow? This depends 
somewhat on the soil and climate, but 
largely on the economic status of the ranch 
in question. Taking a medium heavy loam soil as the 
standard, the difference between 6-inch plowing and 
ID will usually double the crop. 

The difference is more marked, as a rule, in heavy 
soil. After a depth of lo inches has been reached there 
is still a gain in yield for every extra inch up to 20, but 
the question is, will it pay for the extra work? 

This is a problem the individual farmer must 
settle for himself. When he has horses eating their 
heads off in the barn it will pay every time to double 
up and plow as deeply as possible, but if on the other 
hand he has to borrow or hire to plow an extra inch or 
two the returns might not show much of a profit 
above the outlay. 

The only experience worth accepting in a case of 
this sort is that of farmers who have made good at 
dry farming, raised their families and have cash in 
the bank ; in other words, those who have made money 
at it or are well fixed. 

We find that those who plow 8 or 9 inches are 
better fixed and have nicer homes than those who 
plow 5 or 6, but those who have made a minimum of 

9 or 10 are sending their sons and daughters to college, 
and driving fine horses and taking trips. 

Our opinion is that the small farmer should make 

10 inches the minimum depth. The reason is this: 
This depth can be reached with nearly every walking 
plow of good make by taking off the gauge wheel and 
setting her down to the beam, with three heavy horses 



30 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

not less than eleven or twelve hundred each, doing 
the plov^ring. For this work a 12-inch plow can be 
used or even a 14-inch provided the horses are heavy 
enough or the soil easy. 

The difference between riding on a sulky and 
walking in the furrow may mean to the farmer the 
difference between poverty and comfort. It is the 
work of almost one horse to haul the farmer around, 
and this means at least a loss of about 3 inches on the 
plowing. This 3 inches may cause a reduction in the 
crop of 10 or more bushels per acre. The price of 10 
or more bushels on every acre of an ordinary farm 
would not only take the owner to New York for in- 
stance for a trip ; but also hire him taxicabs to ride 
about in while he is there. The farmer who owns 
hundreds of acres of plowed land, has plenty of horses 
or owns an engine is in quite a different class to the 
small farmer who owns only two or three horses, for 
he can place in the hands of his help all the power 
they can handle, but he also must determine for him- 
self his economic co-efficient in soil inches. This can 
be very easily done by keeping record of different 
fields plowed variable depths with the expense account 
attached thereto, and will soon show the most profit- 
able depth to plow. This may be 10, 16 or even 20 
inches. Some tremendous crops of corn running as 
high as 200 bushels to the acre have been raised on 20- 
inch plowing, but we have no record of the expenses. 
One or More Operations? 

The next question we have to consider is : Does 
it pay better to plow the whole depth in one operation 
or to plow first and follow in the same furrow with a 
subsoiler? In ordinary good deep western soil, if the 
same piece of land is plowed say 15 or 16 inches with 
a deep tilling machine, it will yield more to the acre 
than when plowed say 9 inches and subsoiled down to 
15 or 16. 



PRACTICAL WORK OF DEEP PLOWING 31 

For the same reason four horses on a deep tilling 
machine or plow doing fair work for their weight will 
raise more to the acre (other things being equal) than 
two of the same horses plowing and two following 
with a subsoiler. 

Another point in economy: The two teams need 
two drivers, necessitating the cost of an extra man for 
subsoiling. It may be said, however, in favor of sub- 
soiling that sometimes a very tough hard-pan may 
necessitate something of the kind the first year of deep 
plowing. These considerations and many others can 
best be determined by the man behind the plow. In 
order to increase the depth of plowing is it better to 
go down an inch or so at a time or to plow the whole 
extra depth at once? 

Provided the soil is all right, the sooner the 
farmer gets the benefit of his work the better for him. 
What sense is there in waiting five years to get down 
5 inches when he can get down in one? The trouble 
is many of our farmers do not want to do their work 
until the last minute and then plant immediately. 
This should never be done in dry farming. If the sub- 
soil is hard and refractory it must be given time to 
mellow down, and nothing is better for this than the 
winter-fallow. During an average winter the lumps 
will all soak up with the melting snows, then freeze 
and crumble with the thaw, leaving perhaps a few 
clods for the disc to dispose of which is easily done 
after a spring storm. In the meantime the lower 
layers are settling with every storm and the deepest 
kind of plowing will be ready for crops by planting 
time unless the winter is very dry. 

All land should, as far as possible, be plowed 
ahead of time and fallowed for several months, but a 
month or a week is better than nothing. By doing 
this we not only accumulate moisture, but the land 
packs itself which is immensely superior to artificial 



32 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

packing; for all rollers and packers, whether you call 
them subsurface packers or not, must of necessity pack 
the surface more than the lower layers, but when 
nature does the packing the deepest dirt packs the first 
on account of the weight above it ; in other words the 
packer packs from the surface down ; nature packs 
from the bottom up. 

Handling Sod Lands. 

The immediate success of the new settler often de- 
pends on the way he handles his sod. If he breaks his 
land grandfather's way, plows it 2 or 3 inches and runs 
a slanted harrow over it, unless the season is very favor- 
able, he will soon become disgusted with the results, 
for planting seed on chunks of shallow plowed sod is 
very much like trying to raise a crop on a rag-carpet. 

In our western country we usually have a good 
sod full of decayed roots, the humus of ages. On this 
humus mainly depends the chance of raising succes- 
sive grain crops without the expense of purchasing 
fertilizers ; it is the life of the soil. Should we fool- 
ishly and recklessly, deliberately destroy it, by expos- 
ing it to the sun and the oxygen of the atmosphere 
which burn it up and dissipate it into gases, in order 
to make the work a little easier for ourselves? 

Can any sane man doubt that the only proper way 
to handle this sod, this humus, nature's gift to the 
farmer, is to plow it under deep where it can rot in a 
moist environment, and where every particle of it can 
be absorbed and conserved by the soil for future use? 

In the fall of 1887, on my Colorado ranch, we 
plowed ten acres of sod 10 inches deep, left it rough 
all winter to fill up with moisture, and disced and har- 
rowed it in the spring until the surface was as fine 
as old land. On this we planted corn, cultivated three 
times keeping every weed out. The yield was a ton 
and a half of fodder to the acre and thirty-three bush- 
els of corn. 



PRACTICAL WORK OF DEEP PLOWING 33 

A neighbor prepared a piece of the same soil in 
the spring, breaking his sod grandfather's way ; he 
could not cultivate it on account of the chunks ; his 
yield was a quarter of a ton of fodder and three bush- 
els of corn. 

The second year we cross plowed, again 10 inches 
deep, discing thoroughly to disintegrate the last of the 
sod. Our yield that year was forty-seven bushels. 
Our neighbor of the slanted harrow got down 5 inches, 
managed to cultivate six times against our three and 
raised eleven bushels. 

How Often to Plow Deep. 

Is it necessary to plow deeply every year? It 
certainly pays, but it is better to do so every once in 
a while than not at all. Some recommend deep plow- 
ing for a corn crop and then in the fall running in a 
crop of winter wheat on the stubble. This, of course, 
is gambling with nature; sometimes in wet years a 
catch crop can be made, but more often not ; but if hay 
is needed, rye can be planted in this manner with every 
chance of success. It can also be planted for a fertil- 
izer and plowed under in the spring. 
Implements to Use. 

The greatest implement for dry farmers and one 
which in time will place this industry on a perma- 
nently profitable basis is the deep tilling machine in- 
vented by Geo. Spalding. It plows from 10 to 20 
inches deep, one disc working behind the other, both 
in a single furrow tearing the sod to pieces and bury- 
ing it out of sight, leaving a beautiful smooth seed bed 
with the humus at just the right depth for the roots. 
This implement, of course, requires plenty of horse- 
power, which the small farmer does not always pos- 
sess, but any ordinary walking plow properly pointed, 
with the gauge wheel left oil, will go down 10 inches 
if properly maneuvered ; such as the Canton, Gov- 
ernor, Oliver, John Deere and others. 



34 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

The ordinary disc plow may also be used in con- 
junction with these as an emergency plow, especially 
when adobe or ordinary soils are too wet or too dry 
for good work by the moldboard, but in no case should 
land be plowed continually with the single disc plow, 
for this implement scatters the dirt too much without 
completely turning it and for this reason if the soil is 
to be kept in the best condition, must be alternated 
with the moldboard. 

Deep vs. Shallow Plowing. 

Deep plowing is the key to success in dry farm- 
ing, and every failure may be attributed mainly to 
shallow plowing, and the complete evidence of this is 
to be found in the history of the early settlers, for not 
a single deep plower ever went broke or left the 
country. 

There is no doubt that deep plowing is to some 
extent hard work, but not nearly so hard as imagina- 
tion represents it to be, and much the easier in the 
end than surface farming which depletes the soil, 
wears out the farmer and gets nowhere. 
Simplified Dry Farming. 

There are hundreds of dry farmers or rather thou- 
sands who plow about 6 inches, pack, disc, harrow and 
cultivate day and night and Sundays and lose every 
year in wasted efifort enough to keep themselves and 
families in luxury the year round. 

The dry farmer has no expensive outlay, no water 
to pay for, no ditches to mend, no rheumatism to 
doctor, yet he gets irrigation prices for everything he 
raises ; surely he can afford to plow and even if he is 
short of horses, he can double up with a neighbor to 
the advantage of both. 

We are glad to see that deep tillage is taking hold 
in the west and several colonies and communities 
which have adopted it in Colorado, notably at Cathan 
and Limon, are raising the finest of crops even in dry 



PRACTICAL WORK OF DEEP PLOWING 35 

years, are becoming prosperous, making money and 
booming their land values in consequence. 

In a recent article coming to our notice, Mr. Cyril 
Hopkins advances the theory that if we plow deep and 
raise big crops we will exhaust the soil. We would 
be glad if this gentleman would tell us what to do 
with the soil except raise crops on it; he reminds us 
of the man who owned a gold mine and was afraid 
to develop it for fear of running out of gold. 

These western soils are rich in mineral plant food, 
in fact we might say are made up of nothing else, and 
when we consider that the mineral part of plants and 
vegetation generally is only about 6% of the whole, it 
is ridiculous to speak about using up the soil in this 
generation, so long as we conserve the humus — this 
is the point, and the only method ever discovered of 
doing this is deep plowing; plowing under the sod as 
deeply as possible at the start and after that as much 
of the stubble as can be afforded. The abandoned 
farms of New England which everyone has heard 
about were ruined by shallow plowing, surface farm- 
ing using up the humus, raising a little stuff on the 
cream of the soil without adequate plowing; soil rob- 
bery ; burning the candle at both ends. 

These farms are now being sought after by 
modern agriculturists and redeemed by deep plowing 
and the introduction of humus, and some of them are 
in better condition today than ever. 

Shallow plowing destroys fertility by burning up 
the humus which is found mostly on or near the sur- 
face. Deep plowing preserves the soil by burying the 
humus where its gases are absorbed by the dirt instead 
of the atmosphere and thereby conserved. 



CHAPTER IV 

For and Against Deep Plowing 

IN western America we call anything over 8 inches 
deep plowing, but in other agricultural countries 

of the world this is just ordinary plowing. Eugene 
Grubb, after he made a tour of agricultural Europe, 
came back and said that Americans were the worst 
farmers in the world. 

In England, France and Germany, there are 700 
different soils ; they plow about 9 to 10 inches all soils, 
and every once in a while 16 to 20 inches, especially in 
the fall for weathering purposes, and, of course, they 
beat us all to pieces on acre crop averages. 

Prof. Tower reported that on the Island of Jersey 
600 bushels of potatoes to the acre was quite an ordi- 
nary crop ; they are usually planted on land plowed 
20 inches deep. 

The French dry farmers in Algiers have discov- 
ered that the only way to obtain a stand of alfalfa is 
to plow about 20 inches. 

Experiences in Many Soils and Climes. 

Besides dry farming in Colorado for over thirty 
years, I own and operate two dry fruit farms in Cali- 
fornia, have dry farmed in South Africa, have studied 
in English and French colleges and am acquainted 
personally and practically with soil of every variety 
of texture. 

Much of the soil of my Colorado ranch is of 
exactly the same quality as that found in Dakota, 
Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and New 
Mexico. The foundation or subsoil is of a yellowish 
clay containing a fair amount of lime, potash, and 
phosphates; the surface is the usual loam containing 
plenty of humus, when the sod is properly handled. 



FOR AND AGAINST DEEP PLOWING 37 

Deep Tilling or Not. 

Regarding deep plowing with the Spalding plow, 
one well known writer in the northwest in reference 
to Dakota soils, says : "There cannot anyone convince 
me for a minute that one can expect a crop of small 
grain following the use of this implement, tilling to 
a depth of 10 inches, either in a normal fall or in the 
spring before the crop is planted." ''The soil has not 
weight enough and does not get moisture enough to 
settle fast enough." 

In direct contradiction to this we have the experi- 
ence of Professor Waldron of Dickinson, N. D., who 
told us at the Dry Farming Congress that out of sev- 
eral plantings, on land which was packed and on soil 
which was not packed at all, the difference was very 
slight; but what there was, was in favor of the un- 
packed land. 

We also have the evidence of Prof. Alvin Keyser 
of the Agricultural College of Colorado. This gentle- 
man is about the most conservative Professor in 
Colorado and not at all biased in favor of deep plow- 
ing. He says : *'The field was plowed around the 
outside with the Spalding deep tilling machine. A 
strip in the center and a strip on the same field at one 
side was plowed with our usual plows. The yield of 
oats on the land plowed with the Spalding deep till- 
ing machine lacked only a few bushels of being twice 
as great as that on the side strip plowed with the 
ordinary plow. This work was all done on land which 
was in very bad condition because of a lack of rotation 
and manure. The benefits this particular season from 
deep plowing are much greater than we had antici- 
pated; no doubt better because of the run-down con- 
dition of the soil." 

This is a typical case of deep plowing, helping 
run-down light soil, the very soil this writer is so 
afraid of. 



38 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

Professor Ten Eyck says: "191 1 was one of the 
driest years ever experienced in Kansas." ''That while 
the shallow plowed land yielded a little over four 
bushels of wheat per acre, early deep plowing gave 
thirty-eight." As far as packing is concerned the craze 
is beginning to wear itself out ; many of our friends 
are dropping the packer and using the disc instead. 
Every time the land is gone over with any implement 
it develops more plant food and benefits the coming 
crop whether it is a harrow or a packer or a disc. At 
the same time it is quite possible for the land to be 
over aerated, especially when planted immediately 
after plowing. 

Seed Bed Deeper Than Plowing. 

When land is plowed 10 inches deep, it will create 
a seed bed about 15 inches in depth. When this is 
properly disced and harrowed it will be about 14 inches 
deep ; if allowed to fallow for two or three months 
with an average precipitation of an inch a month, it 
will sink down and settle about another inch, and will 
then be 13 inches deep. It is then approaching its best 
physical condition and the crop can be planted. As 
the crop grows and more rain comes it reaches its best 
physical condition at 12 inches, just about in time to 
mature the crop, which gives us the highest possible 
yield. Now supposing the farmer packs the soil at 
the start, reducing it from 15 inches to 13; a month 
or two's fallowing settles it down to 12 ; then he plants 
it. He obtains the best physical condition of the soil 
at the start instead of at maturing time for by that 
time the soil is overpacked a little too hard, liable to 
form a crust under the mulch and the yield is not 
what it promised to be, for over-growth at the start 
is very poor preparation for drouth at the finish. 
Nature's Soil Packing Best. 

Another point: Nature's packing is better than 
artificial, because the soil is packed (by its weight) 



FOR AND AGAINST DEEP PLOWING 39 

from the bottom up while artificial packing is from 
the top down. 

However, I would say this in further answer: If 
Dakota possesses a special soil, to be found nowhere 
else in the world, specially donated by an all wise 
providence to the people of this state, which is very rich, 
but in which the necessary packing quality was over- 
looked, then by all means get a packer and pack it. 

Campbell once said words to this effect : ''If you 
plow over 6 or 7 inches, the packer will not pack it." 

We know it; some packers on the market are at 
their best, playthings ; but there are rollers and pack- 
ers which will pack anything on earth, and we would 
say, rather than lose thousands of dollars a year and 
wear out the richness and germinating qualities of 
your fine top soil by shallow plowing, if you find it 
necessary, invest a few dollars in an implement which 
w^ill do the work. 

Experience Not on Lava Ash Soils. 

Another leading writer in Dakota says of our deep 
plowing methods : ''In the main. Parsons is right ; 
but am afraid he is farming on some of these lava or 
ash soils. He hits straight from the shoulder," etc. 
The necessary momentum to hit straight from the 
shoulder is acquired from dollars in the pocket and 
experience in the upper story. As regards the ash 
soils they are about the only kind I have never farmed, 
but have raised crops on heavier soils and lighter soils. 
The lightest and also the heaviest respond readily to 
deep plowing. Harris B. Wasson, of North Dakota, 
says : "Plow deep everywhere." There you have it 
in a nut shell. We have plenty of friends, however, 
in Montana and Idaho and their verdict of these soils 
also: "Every inch counts." 

Many Being Converted to Deep Plowing Idea. 

Prof. Thatcher agrees thoroughly with us in plow- 
ing the sod deep to save the humus and Prof. Palmer 



40 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

is urging 8-inch plowing as the minimum. The indi- 
cations are that everyone will be plowing deeply in 
a few years, but why lose money in the meantime? 

Campbell also is becoming interested. His paper 
says : "Heavy soils, especially the clays that have 
been plowed from 4 to 6 inches deep, will be benefitted 
by a deep plowing — a plowing that will turn up the 
soil from a depth of 8 to 10 inches." He also says: 
''Lighter soils that solidify readily will stand deep 
tillage, providing a subsurface packer is used to firm 
the root bed." 

This is much better than the antiquated notions 
about plowing which Campbell seemed to have 
adopted into his system. 

The idea of plowing sod 3 or 4 inches, running 
a slanted harrow over it, backsetting it the next year 
and tumbling it about in the sun for a couple of sea- 
sons cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called 
agriculture. Six-inch plowing is not much better, but 
his recent utterance as quoted above is a subject for 
congratulation, as it seems to mark an advance all 
along the line. 

Our Subsoils Are Rich. 

Some farmers object to good plowing because 
they say their subsoils are not rich enough. This is 
an absurd argument, especially in a wheat-raising 
country. The particular quality which differentiates 
a wheat-raising country from any other is the adap- 
tability of its subsoils to this branch of farming. No 
wheat can be raised by 6-inch plowing or any kind of 
plowing, if the subsoil is not right. Wheat is a deep 
feeder, the roots going four feet into the subsoil, and 
any man who can raise even ten bushels to the acre 
and says his subsoil is poor is talking nonsense. 

The reason Dakota is such a fine wheat-raising 
state is owing almost entirely to the quality of its 
subsoils. If you raise wheat, then your subsoil con- 



FOR AND AGAINST DEEP PLOWING 41 

tains lime, potash and phosphorus, besides nitrogen, 
for wherever there is lime (calcium) and humus there 
is nitrogen, for lime conserves nitrogen. Now we get 
back to breaking sod again. The sod is the principal 
source of humus for the new settler, and it is money 
in the bank if properly handled, plowed deep and 
buried in the subsoil. 

Get the Sod Next to Clay. 
The best place for the sod is next the clay where 
the lime can conserve the nitrogen. According to the 
soil specialists, the nitric acid as soon as it is formed 
by the nitrifying bacteria, attacks the lime and be- 
comes nitrate of calcium thus forming a most impor- 
tant soluble element for the soil solution. Where 
there is no lime present to take up the nitric acid as 
soon as formed, the bacteria die in their own juice, are 
killed off by the nitric acid, and the nitrifying process 
slows down or comes to a full stop. For this reason 
wherever we find that nitrogenous crops flourish such 
as wheat and alfalfa, we know about what to expect 
in the subsoil. It is altogether an old-fashioned delu- 
sion to imagine that crops are made by the seed bed ; 
in dry farming especially, the subsoil has most to do 
with it. 

"Dry Farming" More Than "Good Farming." 
Our agricultural friends who come from the 
humid states often tell us that dry farming is nothing 
but progressive farming; good farming. This is a 
serious misconception of the true facts; dry farming 
is a branch by itself, a new agriculture. The soil and 
water physics are entirely different, for speaking 
broadly, dry farming is done on capillary water, while 
humid farming is done on free water. In dry farming 
the water is always going down, and the top drying 
out, while in humid farming the free water is always 
helping out the surface moisture and supplying the 
roots in the seed bed. Therefore we find it impossible 



42 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

to raise profitable crops without the right subsoil con- 
ditions, and these conditions can be obtained by one 
method only, that of deep plowing. 

The Greatest American Agriculturist. 

If we judge the man by his works, the system by 
results, then Dr. Seaman Knapp was the greatest of all 
American agriculturists. He regenerated the agricul- 
ture of the south, made two bales of cotton grow 
where one grew before, and doubled every crop of 
corn and cane, by his deep plowing methods. He 
says : "Many trials made in a great variety of soils 
show that the cost of plowing lo inches deep is on an 
average about 50 cents more per acre than ordinary 
plowing." 

''There is no doubt whatever that breaking and 
pulverizing to a depth of 8 to 10 or 12 inches and 
adding humus is economical." 

Some of the advantages he enumerates are that 
it provides more food because it increases the chemi- 
cal action and multiplies bacterial life in a larger body 
of soil. 

It stores more moisture and loses its moisture 
less rapidly on account of its cooler, lower strata and 
the presence of more humus, (the plowed under soil). 

It increases the root structure. 

It enables the plant to root deeper and find perma- 
nent moisture in the subsoil. 

Government Should Demonstrate Deep Plowing. 

We have been working in Colorado for deep plow- 
ing for a number of years and are getting results. W. 
S. Pershing, mayor of Limon, says : ''The Federal 
Government could do five times as much good for the 
farmers if, instead of building reservoirs, they would 
plow 100 acres a foot deep in each section and turn 
it over to the new settlers." 

Limon is being built up by dry farming with deep 
plowing; hundreds of acres are plowed from 9 inches 



FOR AND AGAINST DEEP PLOWING 43 

to a foot deep. The soil is heavy, the crops enormous. 
Pershing will give particulars. At Calhan following 
our deep plowing methods they are raising, at an alti- 
tude of 6,300 feet, forty to sixty bushels of corn ; sixty 
to seventy bushels of oats, and forty bushels of wheat. 
One of the principal farmers and deep plowers is 
Frank J. Kohler. At Burlington they are raising al- 
falfa all over the prairie. If you plow shallow it dies 
out. If you plow deep it stays. 

On Utah soil we have G. L. Farrel dry farming 
for half a century at Smithfield. He tells us : "1 never 
did very much at dry farming until one day about 
forty years ago, my plow broke ; I started to mend it 
at home, but when we got through we found it had a 
terrible down pull, plowing some 9 to 11 inches. It was 
too far to the blacksmith's, so we went ahead and 
plowed that depth." 

The crop grown on that piece of land was a reve- 
lation to him ; he now plows deep and plants thin, 
raising every year from forty-five to fifty bushels win- 
ter wheat per acre. 

We could fill this paper a hundred times over 
every month with statistics on deep plowing, but if 
any reader wishes to be convinced, why not try it out, 
if only on a quarter of an acre? 

I persuaded a neighbor to do this once and he 
planted it to beans. I saw him the other day. He 
said: "Parsons, we are still living off those beans 
you persuaded me to plant ten years ago." 



CHAPTER V 

Cultivating and Mulching 

IN order to thoroughly appreciate the necessity of 
stirring the soil to create a mulch to conserve 

moisture, some knowledge of soil physics over 
and above what is found in our college books is 
necessary. 

Dry farming is in its infancy as far as its litera- 
ture is concerned, for none of the great agriculturists 
of former days considered it worth while, and nearly 
everything in print concerns humid agriculture, and 
has little or no bearing on dry farming. 

The great difference between the two is, roughly 
speaking, that dry farming is done on capillary water, 
while humid farming is done on free water. Wherever 
the subsoil is dry the free water is forever percolating 
down and becoming capillary (film) water. In the 
humid states the chronic condition of the subsoil is 
wet, not dry, and the consequence is that the precipi- 
tation enters the interstitial spaces between the gran- 
ules which are already covered with film water, and 
remains there more or less as free water until used 
up by the roots. 

If you try it out in the soil, or watch the film 
moisture on the granules through a glass tube with a 
microscope, you will soon find out that the difference 
between these two forms of soil moisture is that 
free water will rise or try to rise to the surface ; film 
water will not. 

In the year book of the Department of Agricul- 
ture for 1908, a writer on soil says, that the soil gran- 
ules hold the film water with a tenacity equal in 
strength to a pressure of several hundred pounds to 
the square inch. 



CULTIVATING AND MULCHING 45 

Cultivation. 

On the humid farm they cultivate as they say, to 
cut off capillarity to make the interstitial spaces so 
large that the free water cannot rise to the surface 
and there evaporate. On the dry farm this is only 
one of the many reasons for cultivating to form a 
mulch. The most important one is to destroy the con- 
tinuity of the earth pores or fissures through which 
the air circulates and causes evaporation. These di- 
minutive cracks or fissures zigzag in every direction 
starting on the surface as the ground begins to dry 
out, and going deeper and deeper every day with the 
drouth. When the soil contains no free water the 
interstitial spaces are occupied by air which, of course, 
is saturated and will carry water out of the soil if 
allowed to escape. 

This air moves in the soil more than most people 
think. In disinfecting soil, vineyards for instance, to 
kill the phylloxera they place half an ounce of carbon 
bisulphide in the center of each cubic block of earth 
3 feet thick by 3 feet wide. This kills everything liv- 
ing within said block inside of 48 hours. It makes no 
difference how hard the earth is so long as the inter- 
stitial spaces are not blocked with free water. 

The deeper the mulch the better, of course, for 
conserving moisture; but here we run up against an- 
other proposition, the accumulation of moisture. The 
more quickly we can receive the water and allow it to 
percolate downwards and become film water the better 
we can save it. The sum of all our experiences 
gathered in this matter is that the best all round mulch 
for accumulating and conserving is about 3 inches 
deep and a rough distinctly furrowed mulch is much 
better than a smooth one. 

The Dust Mulch. 

In a country where there is a rainy season a deep 
smooth dust mulch is of course preferable where the 



46 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

object is to conserve the moisture through a long dry 
spell until the rains begin again, but in our country 
where moisture may fall any minute we have to be 
prepared for it, for if it is allowed to remain on the 
surface as free water a large proportion of it is lost by 
capillarity, and evaporation, especially where the land 
is plowed shallow and overpacked. It is true that 
a smooth mulch offers less surface for evaporation pur- 
poses than a rough one, but it forms more mud, 
catches the water in pools, does not absorb it as 
quickly, bakes and cracks and forms a crust more 
easily. 

Cultivation must always be performed across the 
slope so that the cultivator furrows impede the run-of¥ 
and allow the water to soak in between them, leaving 
the top of the little furrows sometimes almost dry, 
which prevent the baking afterwards so common to 
smooth land. Another point is, that furrowed land, 
however small the furrows, will always remain looser 
than smooth land, because during the drying out proc- 
ess the tension is different at the top than it is at the 
bottom of the furrow, and this diverse action helps to 
keep the soil loose. A most important function of 
the cultivator is to develop mineral plant food. Every 
working of the soil results, as a rule, in increased yield. 
The particles of earth are disintegrated by attrition 
exposing molecules of different elements to the acids 
of the soil, and decomposing humus, which thus be- 
comes converted into soluble salts available for the 
soil solution. 

We have an almost unlimited supply of mineral 
plant food, but not so the humus, and there can be no 
question but that cultivation uses it up. There is no 
way around it, the best we can do is to plow deep, 
thus mixing a large amount of soil with it and thereby 
reducing the loss to the lowest possible limit. 

At the same time attention might be called to the 



CULTIVATING AND MULCHING 47 

fact that shallow plowing followed by intensive culti- 
vation is the most destructive method known of de- 
pleting the soil of humus. The truth of the matter is 
that shallow plowing provides such a small reserve of 
moisture for a crop that if a few drops of water are 
lost, a single cultivation to break the crust neglected, 
disaster is liable to result. The crops are made, such 
as they are, by cultivation instead of plowing which is 
not only unscientific but absolutely unprofitable. 

In cultivating the fallow when the land is deeply 
plowed it is not at all necessary to break every crust 
that forms, for light rains and even winds often come 
and fill up the little cracks or pores before they have 
extended an inch below the surface. Our experience 
in this matter is that a fallow field cultivated enough 
to keep the weeds out, will, if properly plowed at the 
start, contain at the end of the season nearly twice 
as much moisture as the one plowed shallow and in- 
tensively cultivated. When a drouth ensues after wet 
weather the free water in the top 6 inches keeps com- 
ing to the surface and that part of it which has not 
become capillary water is used up fighting the drouth 
for the top inch. 

The Crust Under the Mulch. 

When all the free water has been evaporated the 
top inch commences to dry out, the capillary or film 
water remaining in place ; in a week or so another inch 
will have gone dry, but the soil underneath if tested 
where no crop is growing will be found as wet as ever, 
showing that the moisture is not rising into the dry 
ground above. When the top 3 inches consisting of 
the mulch have dried out, a crust commences to be 
formed by the drouth under the mulch. Now before 
going any further we may point out that if the old 
theory of film or capillary water rising to the surface 
were correct, it would be impossible for the top to 
dry out until the water in the subsoil was more or 



48 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

less used up; but instead of this what do we find? 
That the top dries out and the water in the subsoil is 
as plentiful as at the beginning of the drouth. A few 
simple experiments will convince anyone, who wants 
to be convinced, of these facts. At this stage of the 
game we find the crops in this position. The 3-inch 
mulch is dry, the ground under the mulch is beginning 
to dry and the surface roots are becoming crowded. 
Suppose the seed bed is only 5 inches, we can see what 
a fix the farmer is in ! Suppose the seed bed is 10 or 
12 inches and the drouth getting down at the rate of 
an inch a month, which field would a man put his 
money in to raise the best crop? These questions, of 
course, answer themselves, but there is another ques- 
tion : Will any variety of cultivation help the situa- 
tion when this crust forms under the mulch? 

No; the roots are right there in the crust and if 
the farmer tears up the crust he tears up the roots. 
Another point: There is no more loss of moisture 
with this crust under the mulch than there was before, 
provided the mulch above the crust has been kept in 
good tilth. We have often sampled the soil under the 
crust and found it carrying its full quota of film water 
— for its variety of soil, about 15% to 17%. 

This crust under the mulch is not dreaded by deep 
plowers ; it is only one of the many symptoms of dry 
weather ; let it form if it wants to, and remember this : 
The fifth and sixth inches dry out very slowly indeed, 
if they ever dry out at all, and all the roots the farmer 
can get established by deep plowing below the sixth 
inch are going to stand in any drouth. 

Implements for Cultivating. 

The best implement for cultivating corn is the 
regular six-bladed cultivator running three blades on 
each side of the row. There is no object in cultivating 
deep at the start, and shallow later on, for it is better 
that all the cultivation be about 3 inches, not allowing 




Root Growth in Shallow Seed Bed. 

te'd^\^^?he^?ootS^ l^nr.l^'r,'^^-^^ ^fi,^^^^ ^^^ ^^^"^^ easily be penetra 
xea Dy tiie roots— a condition that exists in shallow-tilled fields. 



CULTIVATING AND MULCHING 49 

any roots above this depth on account of drouth. If 
there is any slope the rows should always run across 
it, not up and down with it, and if the crop is planted 
in hills and worked both ways, the up and down rows 
should be done first and the field finished across the 
slope, as this helps to hold the run-off until it can soak 
in. Cultivation does not create moisture ; it only helps 
to conserve it, therefore in a long period of drouth 
when the mulch is in perfect tilth it does more harm 
than good to keep on cultivating, for it makes a dust 
mulch which clogs the interstitial spaces and when the 
rain does come it cannot get down and the corn goes 
on wilting as before. Everything on the dry farm 
should be cultivated as far as possible, the theory be- 
ing that the farmer should break every crust that 
forms, but with deep plowing if enough cultivation is 
supplied to keep all the weeds down and out, a good 
crop will result. Trees are easy to grow if they are 
planted in rows and cultivated, but when pot holed in 
hard ground they usually die. 

The safest implement to cultivate alfalfa with is 
the harrow, but when planted in rows can be worked 
with the ordinary cultivator. Winter wheat and small 
grain can be cultivated with the harrow and when it 
is too high for that with the weeder which is a machine 
built on the principle of the hay rake. Small grain 
should not be worked until thoroughly stooled, and 
we seldom harrow winter wheat until the spring. 

The most critical time usually for all crops is 
when the spring rains have ceased and the showers 
of summer have not begun ; then is the time to look 
for a drouth, and put a good mulch on everything. 

When I came to the west many years ago, people 
used to tell me it was nothing but a cow country, fit 
only for cattle and coyotes ; yet everywhere we could 
see weeds growing from 2 to 6 feet high ; the prairie 
was dotted with beautiful wild flowers and wild fruit 



50 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

even could be had for the hunting. They called it a 
desert, the arid lands, the cattle country, yet the only 
thing that ever made this a near truth was man's in- 
competency. The very fact of our having to reckon 
with weeds shows the absurdity of such ideas. Fif- 
teen inches of precipitation is plenty for the farmer 
who understands his business, and even then he has 
to fight the weed-growth in order to make his crops. 
Weeds have to be exterminated by cultivation, but it 
is poor economy to be everlastingly weeding a corn 
patch when a little care at the start would have saved 
all the trouble. When the sod is first plowed there are 
very few weeds. The grass should be turned under 
deep so that every one can be cultivated out, and one 
man with a hoe can destroy every one going to seed on 
ten acres in a day. If this is kept up the land never 
becomes weedy. When land is plowed ahead of time, 
as it always should be, nearly all the weeds can be 
cultivated out before ever planting the crop. Crops 
which favor weeds should be rotated with crops like 
winter rye which kill them out. On a weedy ranch 
they have not only this season's weeds to attend to 
which sprout on the surface, but the weeds which will 
come next year from the seed plowed under this year. 
The time to kill weeds by cultivation is when they are 
coming through, and corn can be cultivated with the 
harrow before it comes up by removing a few teeth in 
order to miss the rows ; but a thick planting for fodder 
may be harrowed regardless. 

The Summer-Fallow. 
Intensive cultivation of the summer-fallow is not 
to be recommended, especially with the harrow, for it 
creates a dust mulch, uses up too much humus and does 
not conserve as much moisture as enough rough culti- 
vation with a disc or corn cultivator to keep the weeds 
out. The best implement to use on the summer-fallow 
for catching quick rains is the disc. The land should 



CULTIVATING AND MULCHING 51 

be disced and cross-disced without lapping. This 
leaves the field in checkers or squares the width of the 
disc hollow in the middle and high at the edges, which 
if properly done will hold an inch of rain if it comes 
in twenty minutes. 

The disc is also invaluable for terracing an orch- 
ard on a side hill, hollowing out the rows across the 
slope to catch the water and prevent run ofif. 

The plow and even the road grader can be used 
for such work, and I look forward to the time when 
our hills will be planted to shade trees and our moun- 
tains reforested by just such a method. In cultivating 
as well as in plowing and packing we must always 
have an eye to the accumulation of moisture as well 
as its conservation. 



CHAPTER VI 

Subsoil Moisture 

IT is quite true that some confusion does exist in dry 
farm physics in the minds of nearly everybody 

interested. There are several reasons for this. 
One is that the professors and farmers speak different 
languages. Another is that professors and books do 
not always agree among themselves ; the science of 
today is not always the science of tomorrow, and the 
most beautiful theories in the world may go to pieces 
in the face of some ugly little fact which bobs up 
sometimes many years after, with seemingly no other 
reason except to upset and confuse theory with 
practice. 

Humid Soil Physics Do Not Apply to Dry Soils. 

Another and more pertinent reason is that our dry 
farm soil physics have never been properly elucidated 
and printed in book form and our agriculturists are 
still floundering in the free water physics of the humid 
states which do not apply to our western dry farm 
soils and subsoils. 

I am endeavoring in this article to show from my 
long experience in dry soils wherein this difference 
lies ; but without any explanation whatever, we can all 
see that the action of capillarity in a dry soil must be 
something totally and radically different from the 
action of free water applied to soil granules in a glass 
tube from a basin of water. 

These college experiments are, of course, of value 
to humid farmers and irrigators ; but the dry farmers 
are not farming over a tight subsoil much less over 
water. 

We may avoid some of the confusion by dividing 
soil water into two classes : that which moves and 



SUBSOIL MOISTURE 53 

that which does not move, but here the professor 
might step in again and say there is no water which 
does not move, and technically speaking, he would be 
correct ; but a movement of water in the soil a tenth 
of an inch, the thickening of a film a thousandth part 
of an inch though interesting to the professor might 
not affect the dry farmers' crops a particle ; for what 
he wants to know is : not what capillarity can do when 
supported by free water as Professor Hutton tells us; 
but what happens to film water in our dry farm sub- 
soils when capillary action stops or becomes dormant, 
for this is the chronic or natural condition of our 
subsoils. 

Eastern Teaching Incorrect. 

When agriculturists come here from the east they 
forget that their soils are wet ; ours are dry. The first 
thing they tell us is this : Water soaks into the soil 
and becomes capillary water ; after a while as soon as 
the top begins to dry out it begins to work up to the 
surface again. 

This is correct of the east, but correct only in a 
very limited way of the west and absolutely incorrect 
as applied to the subsoil and the seed bed in dry 
farming. 

In the wet states there is. always water down 
below ; therefore the water cannot get down into dry 
ground where capillary action peters out for want of 
moisture ; but capillary action does cease for another 
reason altogether. When all the granules hold a big 
film of moisture of equal size, capillary action ceases 
because equilibrium is established. 

We must notice that in this case in wet countries, 
action has ceased for the time being, with plenty of 
water on hand (the water that moves). Now when 
dry weather comes and upsets the equilibrium by dry- 
ing out the surface this more or less loose water starts 
by capillary action moving back to the surface again. 



54 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

Dry Land Subsoils Naturally Dry. 

On the dry ranch conditions are altogether differ- 
ent ; our subsoil is naturally dry, not wet. When 
water falls on it, it spreads out and down until it is 
all used up ; it has become film water ; it can never 
move again by capillary action until more water 
comes, as the farmer would say, ''It is too dry to 
move." Therefore, when the top begins to dry out 
this water stays where it is in the subsoil. Now we 
can perceive what a profound difference this fact 
makes between the relation of the seed bed and the 
subsoil, and we can begin to understand that although 
the seed bed is almost dry in some years we can yet 
make a crop on the subsoil. 

Capillary Action Stops Absolutely. 

Dr. Widtsoe in his book says that when a certain 
stage of dryness is reached capillary action stops 
absolutely. 

Dr. Alway, of Nebraska, says when capillarity 
comes to a standstill for want of water, the agency 
which moves water to the surface is distillation. 

Professor Snyder, of North Platte, says his soils 
will hold from 14% to 17% of water after all action 
and drainage have ceased. 

The writer by repeated experiment in the subsoil 
itself knows that his soil will hold against capillarity 
and gravitv with dry dirt all around it from 13% to 
18%. 

The percentage depends largely on the soil, humus 
soil and clay soils holding more than sandy loams. 

In order to be exact I would like to say here that 
I do not intend to infer that capillary action is abso- 
lutely dormant at these percentages; but that any 
slight movement of moisture of a tenth or an eighth 
of an inch for instance obtained by intense pressure, 
does not in any way affect the general relation of top 
soil and subsoil as regards moisture. 



SUBSOIL MOISTURE 55 

Film Moisture Strongly Held. 

In speaking of film moisture a writer of the De- 
partment of Agriculture says in the year book for 
1908, that this moisture is held by the soil granules 
with a tenacity equal to many hundred pounds of 
pressure to the square inch. 

The only agency which can move it is evapora- 
tion. Much of the confusion which arises in the minds 
of ordinary laymen with regard to these matters is the 
result of teachers of agriculture who have had no 
experience in dry farm soils presenting us with the 
soil physics of the wet states which so far are the only 
physics to be found in book form. 

We can imagine what a dry farmer who is accus- 
tomed to the dry subsoils of New Mexico and Texas, 
thinks when some young fellow gets up on the plat- 
form and tells him that the water is always coming up 
from his subsoil traveling in a stream from one gran- 
ule to another until it reaches the surface. If this 
were a fact we would need no dry farming instruc- 
tions and no literature. The truth is, that in times of 
drouth the seed bed may completely dry out while the 
subsoil is carrying a full complement of film water up 
to the limit where active capillarity and drainage 
cease, namely from 14 to 17% in ordinary soils. 

Next I will proceed to show how a man working 
in the soil becomes acquainted with these facts. 

In 1893 and '94 we had two very dry years, the 
precipitation being somewhere about 9 and 8 inches 
respectively. 

Experiments in Dry Orchard. 

In '93 I started preparing land for my orchard by 
deep plowing and fallowing. At the end of the season 
the moisture had penetrated to a depth of 3 feet. 
When the water was going down, the top and even 
the subsoil sometimes carried as much as 25%. After 
the water came to a standstill two or three days after 



56 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

a storm the water in the subsoil always measured the 
same, 17% (in clay loam). 

Every time it rained the same thing happened; 
the moisture went deeper but the percentage remained 
the same. Now why was this? Simply because capil- 
lary action and the pull of gravity came to a stand- 
still when that particular soil carried less than 
17% of moisture. Then when a rain came and 
started action again it did not increase the percentage 
but went on and down deeper and deeper into the 
dry subsoil. 

Now if a lot of farmers on the same soil measure 
the moisture in their subsoils next spring they will 
find to their surprise that they all have the same per- 
centage ; but some who have done good work, espe- 
cially deep plowing, will have 3 or 4 or 5 feet while 
others will have only 2 or 3. 

$5,000 Worth of Fruit Grown. 

In the spring of 1894, I planted 2,000 young trees, 
apples, cherries and plums (which up to date have pro- 
duced $5,000 worth of fruit) on the fallowed land 
which then contained 3 feet of moisture running about 
17%. That year we had a few light showers and then 
about eight weeks' drouth. At the end of the eight 
weeks' drouth the subsoil in the middle of the row 
carried 16% of moisture right through, but adjacent 
to the tree roots it only carried about 12%, showing 
that the trees in the cube occupied by the roots had 
used up about 4%. 

The mulch was dry; there was a crust under the 
mulch which also was dry; close up to the crust was 
soil carrying 16%, yet that moisture staid in place 
moving neither up nor down for eight weeks. 

The fact that there was a crust under the mulch 
which was dry shows that the water was not moving 
up by any capillary action, since there is nothing with 
a much stronger capillary pull than a crust. 



SUBSOIL MOISTURE 57 

Soil Holds Per Cent of Water Against Upward Move- 
ment. 

Every dry year we notice the same phenomenon, 
namely that 15 to 17% moisture will not move upward 
into dry ground by capillary action. This can be 
tested by anyone interested in the ground itself or in 
the laboratory by placing dry dirt or half dry dirt 
above soil containing about 16% moisture. Pressure 
makes little difference ; the fact remains and always 
will remain, that active capillarity stops in our soils 
more or less at these percentages according to the 
density or capillary pull of the dirt tested. In the 
orchard tests, during eight weeks the moisture in the 
subsoil between the rows where there were no tree 
roots was reduced only by 1%, and this loss was 
caused entirely by evaporation through the interstitial 
spaces which, by the way, always goes on in a very 
slight degree owing to the slow movement of the 
saturated air, even when a good deep mulch is main- 
tained. In the fall of the year when the days are hot 
and the nights cold this moisture becomes condensed 
in the mulch and especially on the roots of crops 
owing to the fact that on account of the sap circulating 
through the leaves in the cool night air the root is 
cooler than the soil. This underground dew can easily 
be seen as beads of moisture on sunflower roots any 
September morning after a cold night. Anyone who 
keeps track of his subsoil moisture will discover that 
after a light cold snow, or a cold night it may lose a 
small percentage or fraction thereof by distillation. 
The amount lost, however, in this manner, by thermal 
agencies has little effect on the status of the subsoil 
and, speaking broadly, we may say that water properly 
conserved in the dry farm subsoil stays there until the 
roots of some crop take it out. 

Packing Seed Bed to Establish Capillarity. 

Is there anything in the contention of some that 



58 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

by packing the seed bed we can establish capillary- 
action with the subsoil? 

I have never been able to discover any evidence 
of this. 

In dry years we dig a hole in the subsoil when it 
is carrying its full quota of moisture, fill it up with 
dry or half dry dirt from the seed bed and tamp it 
solid, more solid than any packing could afford ; after 
a month or so, the conditions are unchanged unless 
water is allowed to come in from the surface. The 
only thing noticeable under pressure is a very slight 
blending at the point of contact embracing four or 
five granules. This experiment can also be tried out 
in the laboratory in an even temperature by placing 
the dirt in jars or cylinders. 

In a humid country where there is free water in 
the subsoil to support capillary action moisture may 
move up into the seed bed but never when there is 
a dry subsoil below to steal the surplus water. 

Even in humid countries unless there is an excess 
of rainfall the subsoil can more than hold its own with 
the seed bed because being denser it possesses a supe- 
rior capillary pull which, by the way, does not neces- 
sarily depend upon the density of the particles but on 
the density of the mass as a whole — the smallness of 
the interstitial spaces ; and however much we may 
pack the seed bed we can never make it as solid as the 
subsoil which has never been plowed. For this reason 
when a tree is pot-holed and watered by hand it 
doesn't, as a rule, last long, for the solid ground 
around the hole steals the water. 

What Capillary Action Exists On Dry Farm. 

Now occurs the following question : Do we get 
any capillary action on the dry farm of any conse- 
quence? 

We do — in the top 6 inches or so after wet 
weather before the water has had time to soak down 



SUBSOIL MOISTURE 59 

into the dry subsoil below and become film water. 
This moisture coming to the surface for a few days 
is often mistaken for capillary water rising from the 
subsoil whereas it is nothing but the top inch robbing 
the second and third. We notice this action particu- 
larly after harrowing or packing. How can this mois- 
ture be practically utilized by the farmer? 

When the seed rows are packed, without packing 
the whole surface ; owing to the superior capillarity of 
the packed roAV, the water can be held there long 
enough for germination to take place even in the 
absence of further precipitation. 

Must Depend Upon Subsoil Moisture. 

The more we study dry farm physics the more 
we become convinced of the entire feasibility of 
raising crops on subsoil moisture, for speaking 
broadly, the moisture stays where it is put until 
the roots of the crops take it out and when we 
have 8 or 9 inches of water stored in 4 or 5 feet of 
good subsoil the odds in favor of making a crop are 
about 30 to I ; at least that is as close as I can figure 
it on a 30 years' average with an ordinary precipita- 
tion, and I can also say that although I have had three 
or four small crops in very dry years, I have never 
lost one by drouth. 

The aim and object of this article is to demon- 
strate that if the farmer plows shallow expecting the 
moisture to rise into his seed bed he will be grievously 
disappointed ; moreover, if the top inch of his subsoil 
underneath the plowed ground happens to become 
just a little too dry through insufficient covering, the 
roots will turn sidewise and spread out instead of go- 
ing down and his crops may dry out even when he has 
saved up 4 or 5 feet of moisture in his subsoil. 



CHAPTER VII 
Dry Farm Fertilizing 

IN order to understand anything about soil fertility 
we must first study the soil itself. Where did 

the soil come from, how did it originate? Geolo- 
gists tell us that thousands of years ago, probably 
millions, there was nothing much on the earth but 
rocks and water. 

The action of heat, cold, the washing of the 
waters, the erosion, the grinding of the glaciers and 
chemical action all helped to disintegrate the rocks — 
the result was soil. 

Therefore the basis of the ground we raise crops 
on is fine particles of rock ; mixed with these particles 
is usually a certain amount of organic matter, decayed 
or decaying roots, leaves, stalks, etc., in other words, 
vegetable matter which ultimately becomes humus. 

The breaking up of soil granules, these particles 
of rock, is always going on by chemical action, by 
weathering, and by the friction and attrition of tillage. 

When a farmer wants to make a solution of coffee 
for breakfast he grinds it up and the finer he grinds 
it the stronger the solution will be. The same with 
soil granules ; no land can ever be absolutely ex- 
hausted for all time because the particles in which the 
mineral plant food is locked up are always being di- 
vided and subdivided by natural causes, as explained 
before, and this process goes on indefinitely, releasing 
more or less mineral plant food which is taken up by 
the water, thus forming the soil solution. This soil 
solution may be rich in a good soil containing one part 
of mineral matter in a thousand of water, or it may be 
poor in a depleted soil containing only one part of 
mineral matter in eight or ten thousand parts of water. 



DRY FARM FERTILIZING 6i 

Available Plant Food the Point. 

Now we come to the main point which is the gist 
of the whole matter. 

It is not the mineral plant food which is locked 
up in the granules that makes a soil fertile or unfertile 
for the time being; it is the amount of available plant 
food, the free matter ready for the soil solution, which 
makes the difference between a good soil and a poor 
or used up one. Now comes the question : "Why does 
soil become exhausted by cropping?" Because the 
crops use up the available plant food more quickly 
than nature unlocks it. 

Can we infer from this that if a soil is left alone, 
fallowed for a number of years, it will again become 
fertile? 

If it is a perfect or complete soil containing all the 
necessary elements, it will; otherwise ic may not, for if 
it happens to be short on some element which became 
easily available, and was more or less used up during 
the cropping period, and this element cannot be com- 
pletely renewed by the unlocking process, then the 
soil solution must necessarily be deficient. Analyzing 
soil is a very long and arduous business and even 
when carefully performed seldom gives us a correct 
idea of what the soil needs. What we ought to do is 
to analyze the soil solution in order to discover how 
much available plant food we have in the soil and 
what it is composed of. 

How Did Plants First Feed? 

It is self-evident that when vegetation first com- 
menced to grow on the earth it had to adapt itself in 
some way to the existing soil solutions or perish in 
the attempt, and it is an interesting question as to 
how this came about. Did the plants absorb the soil 
solution as it was, did they filter it, rejecting some of 
it, or did they take it in and then excrete the surplus 
portions of it by means of the roots? The bulk of 



02 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

evidence in this matter goes to show that they did, 
and do now, absorb the whole soil solution as they 
find it and that according to the solution so is the 
plant. 

For instance, in a soil containing plenty of potash 
which forms a soluble salt with silica we always find 
large quantities of this mineral in the stalks of the 
grain ; in a soil containing carbonate of lime in solu- 
tion we find sometimes double the ordinary amount 
of lime in the alfalfa and so on, the crop being always 
a reflection of the soil solution. 

When there is too much alkali, carbonates and 
sulphates of soda the plants absorb it and die. Too 
much soda in the soil will spot the leaves of trees, the 
trees get rid of it by dropping their leaves in the fall, 
and for this reason can stand a certain percentage 
better than some plants. 

Filtration Theory. 

To support the theory of filtration, another theory 
had to be invented — that of osmosis ; but dry farming 
demonstrates that trees live and flourish in ground so 
dry that no osmosis between the roots and the soil 
solution is possible. Building on this filtration theory 
some of the older agriculturists formed the idea that 
one crop for instance would use up more potash than 
another, one more nitrogen or more phosphorus and 
so on, and that in order to even things up we should 
rotate the crops ; but evidently this is not the true 
reason. 

Now comes the Bureau of Soils and tells us that 
crops give out emanations from their roots which 
more or less poison the soil, and that much of the soil 
exhaustion and deterioration comes from this. 

Dr. Cyril Hopkins scouts the idea, and as far as 
our dry farm soils are concerned, I am convinced the 
Doctor is right. 

Dry farming with its dry farm soils and their 



DRY FARM FERTILIZING 63 

chemistry and physics as I have always maintained 
is quite a different proposition to humid farming in 
the eastern states. 

We can quite understand that the roots of crops 
at depth in wet soil may decompose with the assist- 
ance of the poisonous anaerobic bacteria, and give off 
emanations toxic to crops, the antidote of which is 
aeration. 

Humus. 

In my dry farming experience I have always 
found that the more roots left in the soil the more 
humus, the more humus the more crops. The hardest 
crops on the soil are those in which we remove the 
roots, such as beets, potatoes, etc. If we take the 
roots of any grain crop, dry them out, powder them 
up, make tea of them and apply it to some growing 
plant, instead of poison we find we have a fine fer- 
tiHzer. Such evidence as the above leads me to be- 
lieve with Professor Bolley that the true reason for 
crop rotation lies in the fact that the soil becomes 
crop sick when planted continuously to the same 
thing. 

Crop Sick Soil. 

What is crop sick? Anyone who has raised flax 
and potatoes has discovered what this is. Diseases are 
nothing but small organisms preying on big organ- 
isms. Germs, microbes, bacilli, bacteria, or whatever 
you like to call them have been found at the bottom of 
everything; there is some difficulty in discovering 
some because they are so small as to be invisible under 
a microscope which magnifies 3,000 times. All crops 
are more or less infested with them and the symptoms 
they produce are classed as different diseases or 
blights ; but the point which concerns us is, that each 
genus of microbe has its own particular crop, and as 
long as this crop is raised to the exclusion of all others 
the soil becomes more and more infested with the dis- 



64 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

eases which belong to it, or as Professor Bolley re- 
marks, the land becomes crop sick. 

Improper Use of Fertilizers. 

The Bureau of Soils gives as one of its reasons 
for believing in the toxic exudation theory that on 
some soils some fertilizers do more harm than good. 

The answer to this is : They do in this country 
but not in others where fertilization is better under- 
stood. America is young; we are just beginning to 
feel the need of these things, in other countries they 
have been studying it for hundreds of years. In Ger- 
many the agricultural chemist does nothing but study 
out these questions, and we may be quite sure that 
no German farmer ever puts a pound of commercial 
fertilizer on his land unless he is assured of adequate 
returns. 

The soil solution usually contains some form of 
iron, magnesia, lime, soda, silica, sulphur, and the com- 
pounds of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash. 

These three last are the most soluble and 
disappear from the soil the quickest, and if we 
can replace these there is little trouble about the 
others. 

Commercial Fertilizers Too Expensive. 

The difficulty is there is no commercial fertilizer 
cheap enough to use which gives us the exact com- 
pounds of nitrogen and potash for instance as nature 
produces them in the soil. We can obtain the neces- 
sary phosphate from applying the ground rock in the 
natural condition which works perfectly ; but for nitro- 
gen the principal fertilizer is nitrate of soda, for pot- 
ash kainit, and with both of these the utmost care is 
needed in the application. Strictly speaking, nitrate 
of soda is not a chemically correct nitrogen fertilizer 
such as we might consider nitrate of calcium, nitrate 
of potash or even ammonia to be, but the price, the 
cost of manufacture of these latter prohibits their use 




Root Growth of Corn in Deep Seed Bed Such as May be Found 
on Deep-Tilled Land. 



DRY FARM FERTILIZING 65 

at present. Nitrate of soda which is brought from 
the deserts of Chili cannot be advantageously applied 
to all soils, especially those more or less alkaline, on 
account of the soda. Some of the nitrogen goes off in 
the form of ammonia which leaves soda, and under 
ordinary conditions this takes up carbonic acid and 
becomes carbonate of soda, a most undesirable alkali. 
The trouble is a little too much alkali, or even a little 
too much acid, may upset the chemical equilibrium of 
the soil solution. For example, when soil water, the 
soil solution, contains a certain percentage of carbonic 
acid, which it usually gets from humus, it can dis- 
solve and hold in solution such minerals as protoxide 
of iron, lime, potash and magnesia, all necessary to 
plants. Now supposing enough soda attacks the solu- 
tion to combine with all the carbonic acid by forming 
carbonate of soda ; then it can no longer hold the 
former substances in the water and consequently its 
efficiency is reduced by that much. Kainit, also the 
great German potash fertilizer, contains other con- 
stituents besides the potash ; it is described as a 
hydrous potassium magnesium chloro sulphate. 

Commercial Fertilizers May Destroy Humus. 

Now I would like to ask, does any farmer who is 
likely to try this in our country, does anyone in fact, 
understand what will be the exact action, combina- 
tions or affinities of these elements and compounds, 
when applied to the soil or mixed with other fertilizers 
under diverse thermal and moisture conditions? It 
has been proved in Europe, however, and I believe we 
may accept it as a fact, that the indiscriminate use of 
chemical fertilizers without adding humus (and I 
believe here is the principal trouble) leaves the soil 
in worse condition than it was before, which is not 
apparent however until the use of them is discontinued 
for some reason or other. 

In the meantime it is impossible to deny that 



66 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

these same fertilizers when properly applied, are pro- 
viding something for the plant, previously exhausted 
from the soil, or otherwise they could not restore the 
yield and the farmers would not buy them. It is 
absurd to imagine that a quarter of a million farmers 
in western Europe are buying kainit just for the fun 
of spreading it over their land. If we make a careful 
analysis of some soil, put it in a pot and place a plant 
in it, and after three years or so when the plant has 
ceased growing make another analysis and find a loss 
of nitrogen, phosphate and potash, would it not be a 
safe deduction to assume that the plant used them up? 

If we analyze the plant and find them there, would 
it not be a still safer deduction? 

If we place the missing compounds back in the 
pot and the plant takes another lease of life and grows 
equally well for another three years, would it not be 
as near to an absolute certainty as we can get? As I 
have often remarked, why not try some of these things 
instead of arguing? 

Although mistakes in applying fertilizers may 
cause some in this country to search for other expla- 
nations than soil exhaustion, the repeated and almost 
universal using of these materials for the purpose of 
soil restoration in the older agricultural countries 
where the land has been worked for hundreds of years, 
demonstrates that if we know how, we cannot only 
put back what the crops take out but can continue to 
produce profitable yields for centuries. 

Dry Farmer Doesn't Need It. 

As far as the dry farmer is concerned he will need 
little or no commercial fertilizers probably for a gen- 
eration provided he takes care of the humus. 

This humus is what he must look to, for it is a 
fertilizer in more senses than one ; it contains not only 
a fair amount of predigested mineral plant food, but 
provides a medium for the development of nitrogen, 



DRY FARM FERTILIZING 67 

and last but not least evolves acids which assist ma- 
terially in unlocking the fertility already in the soil 
granules. Therefore we consider that the vital point 
for the present is to conserve the humus. The future 
will probably take care of itself, for we have not only 
potash fields, but plenty of rock phosphate in the west 
awaiting development, and as far as nitrogen is con- 
cerned there are indications that we will soon be able 
to manufacture at a practical price all we can use from 
the atmosphere. 

How to Conserve Humus. 

The real problem then is, how can the dry farmer 
conserve the humus? To begin at the beginning, the 
very first thing to do is to plow the sod under deep 
which mixes it with a large amount of dirt, keeps it 
away from the atmosphere and allows all its gases and 
emanations to be absorbed by the soil. The next point 
to consider is that in taking a crop off the ground we 
should leave as much as possible of it to be plowed 
under. 

Nothing could be worse than the method now in 
vogue of burning straw stacks, for when this is done 
the farmer is recklessly destroying somewhere about 
$15 worth of fertilizer to the acre per annum. The 
only correct method of handling this problem in the 
grain field is to head the wheat instead of binding it, 
leaving nearly all the straw to be plowed under. 

How can humus be supplied to a field which needs 
it? There are two other ways besides manuring — 
plowing under green crops, and planting it to alfalfa. 
The best crop for this purpose is fall rye, because it 
can be planted in the fall and plowed under when a 
foot or eighteen inches high in the spring in plenty 
of time for planting corn or sorghum or other late 
crops. For fertilizing purposes it should be planted 
40 .or 50 pounds to the acre in the late summer in order 
to give it plenty of time to stool. 



68 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

Plant Alfalfa Before Too Late. 

Whenever a field shows signs of exhaustion, it 
should be planted to alfalfa before too late ; I say too 
late because it is a difficult matter to obtain a good 
stand of alfalfa on poor soil. If it cannot be secured 
otherwise it will pay to plow under a green crop and 
enrich the ground before planting. The reason that 
alfalfa improves land in spite of heavy cropping (I 
am speaking only of dry land alfalfa) is that it leaves 
more humus in the soil than it takes out, or to speak 
correctly, than it used up in the soil which supports 
it. This humus is supplied by the lO or 20% of leaves 
which drop oflf during the harvesting and also by the 
roots the weight of which runs into many tons per 
acre. 

Sand bars and deserts reclaimed from the ocean 
or rivers may eventually become fertile as nature pro- 
vides the humus ; for plain ordinary sand may be rich 
in the essentials if the requisite compounds are pro- 
vided to unlock them. 

Humus the Essential. 

At first the vegetation is sparse and far between 
but a little humus is getting into the soil ; after many 
years the vegetation changes little at a time but be- 
comes stronger and heavier and as it decays and goes 
back to earth again more and more humus is getting 
into the soil and eventually perhaps after hundreds of 
years the desert may become fit for the plow, espe- 
cially if the winds assist in bringing soil from more 
favored localities. 

Humus is of more value to the dry farmer than it 
is to his brother of the wet states on account of its 
water-holding capacity ; it even surpasses clay in this 
respect, but unlike clay it improves the texture of the 
soil, making it more friable, for its particles being 
of organic origin it cannot combine readily with min- 
eral matter to form a crust. 



DRY FARM FERTILIZING 69 

In summing up this case of fertilization, I would 
say that I believe that if the dry farmer rotates his 
crops, feeds them to cattle returning the excretions to 
the soil, plows deep, saves the sod at the start and 
takes care of the humus and soil generally, plowing 
under green crops when necessary, he will have little 
use for any further fertiHzation for a generation at 
least. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Packing and Fallowing 

MY experience in this matter is, that the best 
yield from a crop is obtained not by having 
the field in best physical condition, the opti- 
mum state of density at planting; but just before ma- 
turing time. 

It is self-evident that as the soil in a field after 
being plowed becomes more and more packed by every 
rain that comes and also by the weight of its own soil 
it gradually approaches its optimum condition for 
crops and then by becoming more and more solid it 
passes this point of perfection and becomes too solid. 

This is an important matter to so adjust the best 
period of soil condition that it will meet the greatest 
need of crop growth. 

When Best Condition is Needed. 

Now the greatest need of crop growth is not when 
a crop is first planted, but when it is making grain ; 
therefore, if by artificial packing we put our soil in the 
best physical condition as regards density at planting 
time when the crop does not require it, we lose by it, 
for when maturing time arrives a few months later, 
and optimum condition of the soil is needed to make 
the crop, we cannot obtain it, for it reached that point 
at planting time, several months ago, and the soil is 
now hard and solid just when it ought to be in the 
very pink of condition to support the crop in the mak- 
ing. Soils differ largely in respect to settling, and 
packing, and the following figures must be taken ap- 
proximately. 

When a field of our ordinary soil is plowed once 
a year lo inches deep it will throw up a seed bed about 
15 inches high, after this has been harrowed and 



PACKING AND FALLOWING 71 

disced and smoothed over it will measure about 14 
inches. 

Now we have seen that in plowing we have 
gained about 5 inches, divide the gain by 2, this gives 
us 25^ inches. This is the best condition for crops 
when the ground has settled or been packed down 
about 2^ inches, making the seed bed 12^ inches. 
This same rule applies to any depth of plowing, for 
instance, if we plow 8 inches and raise a seed bed 12 
inches, the gain is 4 inches, divide 4 by 2 gives 2. 
Therefore a 12-inch seed bed is at its best when settled 
or packed down 2 inches, i. e., 10 inches deep. 
Requirements of Different Crops. 

There is also some difiference in crops, the opti- 
mum for small grain calling for about one-half an inch 
more packing than other crops. In dry farming this 
best physical condition of the soil as regards its den- 
sity is not so intense, so much packed as that in the 
eastern or humid states, because we have to allow a 
certain percentage for the accumulation of moisture 
which the eastern farmer need not bother his head 
about. 

For instance, a greater density of the soil mass 
than the figures given above would be the optimum 
for root assimilation, if that were the only point to 
be considered ; but it would not be nearly as favorable 
for the penetration of mioisture, and since both are 
most important factors in production, we take the 
mean, the best all around for both reasons. Dry farm- 
ers who have been wrought up by reading packing 
literature sometimes wonder how it is that a field of 
small grain which gives magnificent promise at the 
start, all of a sudden when dry weather comes seems 
to stand still and begins to peter out. 

Overpacked at Maturing Time. 

The answer to this conundrum usually is, that by 
overpacking the soil was brought to its best physical 



72 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

Condition at the start, and as it became more and more 
packed by rains, it became too solid, held the moisture 
too much on the surface, and when dry weather came 
the crop suffered. Vigorous growth at the start with 
short straw or stalks and a falling off at maturing time 
is nearly always a sign of too solid a seed bed. 

Shallow plowing, a heavy flood and then dry 
weather are often responsible for this condition even 
in the absence of all artificial packing. In the same 
manner winter wheat when too much packed by the 
tramping of cattle is liable to be injured and its yield 
reduced. It should never be pastured excepting when 
the ground is frozen solid ; there are exceptions, per- 
haps, but it is better to take no chances. 

Little Artificial Packing Required. 

The sum of my experience in this matter is that 
while some very light soils may be excepted ; as a gen- 
eral rule, in our ordinary loams, little artificial pack- 
ing is needed in dry farming; that land will reach its 
optimum condition at about the right time for matur- 
ing a crop, which is also the best time for yield, if 
allowed to lie fallow for a month or two after being 
thoroughly disced and harrowed. The fallow for win- 
ter wheat, of course, should never be packed. 

No packing is needed for the corn and the 
sorghum field, for this can all be done with the disc 
and the harrow. 

This cuts our packing down to compacting the 
land for immediate planting after plowing. This is 
something we never recommended, but if small grain 
is planted this way, the soil should be thoroughly com- 
pacted an inch or two, more or less, according to the 
rule given above, either by alternate discing and har- 
rowing or by using a corrugated wheel packer. 

For instance, if the ground is plowed lo inches 
and the seed bed is 15 inches deep, the optimum is 
12^ inches. This should be the depth of the seed bed 



PACKING AND FALLOWING 73 

in July ; therefore, at planting time in May we reduce 
the seed bed an inch and a half or two inches, leaying 
an inch or so for nature to further pack the ground 
between May and July. 

Sod is so elastic that no harm can be done to it 
by packing whenever it is expedient to do so to smooth 
the field. 

When sod is plowed shallow, as Campbell advises, 
it has also to be packed or the horses will bring it 
home with them under the harrow. 

Deep Plowed Sod Needs No Packing. 

When sod is plowed deep (not to play with, but 
to raise a crop on) if it is thoroughly disced and har- 
rowed alternately until fine enough to cultivate as it 
ought to be to obtain results, it will not need any 
further packing. 

By packing the seed row, and not the whole sur- 
face, we give it the advantage for germination purr 
poses, because being more compact, it will steal the 
surplus from the other whenever there is any free 
water moving, and by this means facilitate the estab- 
lishment of the minute seedlings in times when pre- 
cipitation is scarce. 

Nearly all the seeding implements, by means of 
wheels or other devices, provide the necessary packing 
for this work. 

Packing Will Not Cause Moisture to Rise. 

The contention of Campbell and some others that 
by packing the seed bed, we can cause the moisture to 
rise from the subsoil is erroneous. In times of drouth 
the seed bed slowly dries out from the top down, even 
when the subsoil is carrying perhaps 10 feet of 17% 
moisture and not losing an ounce a day. We tested 
this out in the following dry years: 1893, 1894, 1908, 
1910 and 191 1, in the orchard, the summer-fallow and 
in fields planted to crops, by taking and weighing and 
keeping tab of the subsoil every few days. The 



74 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

farmer, however, will always obtain some kind of a 

crop when by deep plowing it is rooted in the subsoil. 

Various Packing Implements. 

We may call an implement a subsurface packer 
or an underground roller if we like, but if it moves 
on the surface, it packs from the surface down ; be- 
cause it also scrapes up a little dust on the surface, it 
need not throw dust in our eyes as to the work it does. 

Nature packs from the bottom up, and this is the 
best kind of packing. 

To fill up the air spaces between the furrow slices, 
the disc is the best machine because of its strong 
lateral pressure. 

The disc is also safe to use on clay, packers and 
rollers are not. Some friends of ours in New Mexico 
lost some fine crops through not understanding this 
point ; their soil was heavy clay loam and the moisture 
together with the packing made brick of it. 

Professor Waldron at one of the Dry Farming 
Congresses gave us some interesting information on 
packing experiments, and in this connection I would 
like to say that I can always agree with a professor 
when he does practical work in the field. He told 
us, and I can report the same from my own experience, 
that the strips of land which were packed did not yield 
any more than those which were disced and in some 
cases the strips which were not packed with the packer 
yielded a trifle more. 

Now if a man plows a piece of land and then har- 
rows and packs, he will make a trifle better yield than 
if he only plowed and harrowed ; but if he plows and 
harrows and discs, he will be a trifle ahead of the two 
former. The philosophy of this is : Every time you 
work the land, you add a little to the yield. 
Mistakes in Summer-Fallowing. 

I read an account once in some dry farm litera- 
ture, as to how we should prepare the summer-fallow. 



PACKING AND FALLOWING 75 

We were to plow it 5 or 6 inches, then harrow it, then 
pack it, then cultivate it every time a crust formed. 

Some men manage to keep the wolf from the 
door by plowing 5 or 6 inches, but they don't get 
wealthy at it. This depth of plowing will hardly ac- 
commodate an inch and a half of rain, and if there is 
any moisture already in the soil, less than that. Then 
for fear it might take in more than its share of mois- 
ture, we are told to pack it. Now if the writer had a 
grain of sense, he surely would know enough (if pack- 
ing were needed at all) to let the rain soak in first and 
then pack it some time afterwards. 

To cultivate a fallow every time a crust forms is 
nonsense. When is the farmer to eat his meals? 
Proper Fallowing. 

It is very profitable to raise wheat by the fallow 
method ; in the dry lands of California, Utah, Oregon 
and other states, people are becoming rich at it, and 
where land is cheap, it is almost as easy to have two 
wheat patches as one. 

The land should be plowed at least 9 or 10 inches 
when the weeds are carpeting the soil about 6 inches 
high ; here we get some humus. 

It should be harrowed smooth and then disced and 
cross-disced without lapping, leaving it until another 
crop of weeds shows up. 

This time it may be disced and cross-disced again, 
allowing the team to straddle the ridges made by the 
first discing so as to reverse the process. 

The last of the weeds may then be cultivated out 
at wheat planting time in August or September and 
even if there are a few left, the frost will get them 
before they mature. 

When water falls on more or less dry fallow land, 
it goes in until it stops. Now why does it stop? Be- 
cause it requires a certain amount of water to support 
capillary action. 



76 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

How Water is Stored in Subsoil. 

Four or five days after a storm, when all capillar- 
ity has ceased, we dig down as far as dry dirt; if the 
precipitation has been 2 inches, we find about a foot 
of wet dirt above this dry dirt. This upper foot of 
damp dirt in ordinary wheat soil will be found carry- 
ing by test about 17% of its total weight in water. 
Presently another storm arrives and we get another 
2 inches ; the dry dirt takes it in again, and we get 
another foot ; we leave it a week for capillarity to have 
full sway, and after it has stopped moving, we test 
it again ; it still carries the same percentage, about 17. 

Therefore we see that 17% is about all we can 

carry in ordinary soils ; but we can save up perhaps 

10 feet of it. What a chance for wheat and corn 

whose roots will go into this subsoil from 4 to 10 feet ! 

Testing Action of Soil Waters. 

We have seen that dry dirt has no power to at- 
tract this moisture, for the dry dirt is below it, yet 
capillarity stops. If we dig out some of this dry dirt 
and put it above it, does it start up capillary action? 
No. Some argue that it does. Now instead of arguing 
why don't they try it? This is a most important point 
in dry farming and can be proved so easily, by obtain- 
ing a little dirt out of the subsoil, putting some dry 
dirt above it and some dry dirt below it, and watching 
results. A mason jar or an ordinary drinking glass 
can be used. The dirt, of course, must be taken from 
a subsoil which is dry below for this is the true con- 
dition of a dry farm subsoil. 

On bottom land with water at 10 or 12 feet con- 
ditions are entirely different. The percentage which 
a soil will hold against capillarity and gravity varies 
with its quality. Some clays and humus soils hold 
as much as 20 and 25%. 

' • On my ranch we have about 100 feet of dry sub- 
soil under our fields, maybe more, but this is as deep 



PACKING AND FALLOWING 77 

as I have been, and anyone can understand that if the 
water were to fade away into this dry dirt by capillary 
action, it would be absolutely impossible to dry farm. 

Out of this 17% moisture that we are able to hold, 
the crops can appropriate only about 10 parts, leaving 
7 in the soil ; therefore, if we can accumulate in the 
fallow about 5 feet of moisture we have in the neigh- 
borhood of 10 inches of water, and out of this 8 inches 
available for crops. This 5 feet of moist soil contain- 
ing 8 inches of available vv^ater is sufficient to raise a 
crop. 

How Water Escapes From Soil. 

The only way it can get out of the subsoil is by 
air movenient, evaporation through the interstitial 
spaces, and when this is checked by a seed bed 10 
inches deep, the loss is a mere nothing. At the time 
of my experiments in water storage, I was building 
a shed, and while digging the holes for corner posts 
found 3 feet of moisture. I partitioned off a corner 
under this roofed-over, watertight shed and put a good 
mulch on it a foot deep ; this subsoil was then carrying 
17% water; at the end of three 3^ears it was carrying 
close on 15%, at 2 feet underground. There was no 
capillary action and the dry dirt was in the same posi- 
tion directly underneath it. 

Some ten or fifteen years ago, when the public 
was beginning to open an eye as to dry farm possibili- 
ties, I was invited to read a paper. I advised the 
farmers to get their moisture first and then raise a 
crop on it. The agriculturists said that owing to cap- 
illary action this was impossible. Dr. Alway, of the 
University of Nebraska, however, thought different, 
(he makes his experiments in the field as well as in 
the laboratory). He placed some soil containing 
about 8 inches of water in boxes, mulched it and 
placed it under glass and grew wheat without a single 
drop of rain. 



78 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

Get Water Into Subsoils. 

All this goes to show that if you can accumulate 
4 or 5 feet of moist earth in the summer-fallow you 
can raise a crop of wheat on it, whether it rains or 
not. 

I feel like apologizing to the readers for harping 
so much on this capillary problem, but this is the one 
vital point upon which all dry farming hangs. The 
best preparation for the winter-fallow in a blizzard 
country is rough plowing. 

While the ground is frozen there is no evapora- 
tion to speak of ; but as soon as the ground commences 
to thaw in March a mulch should be put on, and even 
in winter this may be necessary if the weather stays 
warm and open, without any frost in the ground. 

For raising large crops of wheat deep plowing in 
conjunction with fallowing is rapidly coming into 
vogue and will undoubtedly in many states be the 
method of the future. 

We do not need to go to Canada to raise wheat, 
the only advantage they have over us is that the frost 
does their subsoiling for them ; that is the reason they 
raise wheat. Give us a deep-tilling machine and a 
good man behind it and we can beat them at their 
own game. 



CHAPTER IX 

Roots and Subsoils 

IN the old agriculture, the farmer concerns himself 
mainly about the seed bed, and the success of the 

crop is supposed to be determined by the degree 
of efficiency with which it is prepared. 

In our new agriculture, it is most important that 
the quality and condition of the subsoil enter into all 
our calculations for it is quite a question which of the 
two bears the greatest relation to yield. 

After we get over the idea that dry soil can rob 
wet soil of nearly all its moisture, we begin to get 
down to the actual facts in the case, which are : That 
we may have loo feet of dry dirt underneath our 
subsoils (which hold our crop moisture) or a foot of 
dry soil above, but in spite of capillarity or gravity 
or anything else, this subsoil can hold a certain per- 
centage of moisture quite adequate for raising crops 
which can escape only through the roots of said crops 
— or very, very slowly by an almost imperceptible 
evaporation. 

It is this fact which makes dry farming possible, 
for if we were to depend on the crops catching a little 
moisture from each storm as it fell before it had time 
to fade away by capillarity into the dry subsoil, we 
would have a hard time indeed. 

Instead of this, we find in practice that we can 
save up from 3 to 10 feet of moist soil almost any 
year we have a mind to, and that this moist dirt will 
carry a high enough percentage of water on which to 
raise crops. 

Our ordinary clay loam subsoils will carry usually 
as high as 17 and sometimes 20%, sandy soils from 
14 to 16 and some sage brush humus soils as high as 



8o PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

21 to 25%. Therefore the difference between a rich 
subsoil and a poor sandy one is this: The rich one 
will hold the same amount of water in a less number 
of feet. For instance, after say, 10 inches of rain have 
fallen, we find the clay loam has approximately 5 feet 
of 17% moisture, the sandy loam has 6 feet of 14% 
moisture, but they both contain about 10 inches of 
rainfall. 

Now, which is the best for dry farming purposes? 
The one which holds the most water, for the roots can 
drink the more easily from an abundance, and have 
less distance to travel in order to get it. 

For these reasons we perceived that the clay loam 
soils of the west with a clay subsoil are amongst the 
very best for dry farming. Campbell says : ''Get the 
right amount of air and water into your soil." 

Now many of western soils and subsoils are bulk 
for bulk near 50% air already ; now what on earth do 
we want to get any more air into our soils for? 

This may be good policy in the water-logged soils 
of the east and even in Lincoln, Nebraska, but in our 
dry western states I would say get all the water you 
can into the soil and let the air take care of itself. 
Water and Air in Soils. 

The philosophy of the whole matter is this: 
When water goes into the soil, it drives the air out; 
but when water dries out, the air goes in, and goes in 
to any depth, for we are living under an atmospheric 
pressure of about twelve pounds to the square inch. 
As I have already explained in a former article, our 
soils are never water-logged because all the free water 
is taken up by the dry subsoils almost as quickly as 
it falls. 

Therefore, we may note that while the humid 
farmer has to worry about the air and lets the water 
take care of itself; the dry farmer worries about the 
water and lets the air take care of itself. 



ROOTS AND SUBSOILS 8i 

Relation of Water to Root Growth. 

Now comes a rather pertinent question : How do 
the different percentages of water in the different sub- 
soils affect the root growth of plants? They have a 
very marked effect not only on the roots themselves, 
but on the ultimate results, for if the subsoil does not 
contain the necessary amount of water, the roots do 
not go into it ; cannot penetrate it, and the crop is 
more or less of a failure. A farmer would naturally 
suppose that the largest, sturdiest roots, such as corn 
roots for instance, would possess a better penetrating 
quality than such roots as those of wheat, rye, etc. 

We find, however, that for some reason or other, 
rather the opposite is the case. 

Unfortunately, I can give only the results of tests 
and experiments made on my own ranch, and soils, 
and cannot guarantee that these results would be ab- 
solutely the same on other soils and under other con- 
ditions ; the difference, however, would be relative 
only, varying as the soil varies. I find that the roots 
of all crops will penetrate a subsoil easily and readily 
which contains its full quota of film moisture, from 
14 to 17% or thereabouts. When the plowing is shal- 
low, and the subsoil inadequately protected, evapor- 
ation may reduce this to 8 or 9 or 12% ; then the 
trouble begins, for the roots instead of going down, 
spread out on the surface. 

Some subsoils are harder than others and require 
more moisture to make them pervious. 

There is also a difference in roots ; those of rye 
will penetrate almost anything which is not less than 
10 or 12% wet, wheat and barley 12 to 14%, and those 
of corn any ordinary subsoil not less than 13 or 15. 
Soft sandy subsoils are easy for the roots to enter even 
when these percentages are somewhat reduced. The 
roots of corn and especially sorghum seem to possess 
a greater facility for extracting a low percentage 



82 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

of moisture from the soil than those of small grain. 

The roots of corn at the period of their greatest 
growth will often grow two inches a day and those 
of small grain will not be far behind. 

Every cubic inch of soil a few inches below the 
surface will contain from three to four hair roots and 
these can extract about all the available moisture. 
How Roots Absorb Water. 

Here the question arises : How can the roots 
absorb moisture from soil granules with which they 
are not in actual contact? 

As I have already shown, our soils will hold against 
active capillarity and gravity somewhere about 15 
or 17% water. If we take some of this soil and place 
dry soil against it, above it or below it; the moisture 
does not move into the dry soil ; there is nothing but 
a slight blending at the point of contact where the 
wet tapers off into the dry. 

This sub-active capillarity at the point of contact 
if it amounts only to a quarter of an inch enables the 
root hairs to abstract moisture from say one-fourth of 
an inch on either side of them, making one-half an 
inch in all ; therefore, when hunting for root hairs with 
a powerful magnifying glass, they will be found usu- 
ally nearly every half inch or so. 

We might ask: Why does this subactive capil- 
larity stop where it does? Because there is not 
enough water to keep it going. The thinner the film 
on the granule, the tighter it is held and the harder 
to move. A granule in 17% land can take and hold 
a 17% film from free water; this is the limit of its 
power. Free water offers no opposition, but taking 
water from another granule is quite a different propo- 
sition. According to theory if a dry granule is placed 
against a wet granule, since they both have the same 
capillary pull, it will steal half its film, but in practice 
it does not do this, no doubt owing to the extra fric- 



ROOTS AND SUBSOILS 83 

tion of dragging it off the other granule, therefore we 
find that a dry granule can take only half a film less 
about 10% more or less from a wet granule, and this, 
of course, brings the whole process to a dead stop 
inside of 10 or more granules. This action stops in 
soils when the moisture is reduced to somewhere 
about 6%. In root investigations we find, therefore, 
that where the hair roots are not too far apart they are 
able to assimilate nearly, all the available moisture; 
but where they are far apart, such as the roots of trees 
for instance, we find after a long dry spell streaks of 
dry dirt where the root hairs absorbed the moisture, 
and wet or damp streaks where they were unable to 
reach it. In my dry farming orchard, after two 
months drouth in 1908, I found close to the tree where 
there were no hair roots at 2 feet underground, about 
16% moisture, 5 feet from the tree 14%, 10 feet from 
the trees where most of the hair roots were, only 
about 11%. 

We encounter many difficulties in film water in- 
vestigations owing to the fact that there are no appli- 
ances to assist in this particular variety of research 
work. The granules can be examined and watched 
only under glass or else evaporation carries off the 
film; the glass makes trouble for the microscope, 
owing to refraction; besides which the reflectors are 
arranged for work with slides containing a section of 
the object to be examined, and are not rightly placed 
for throwing light on a growing root in a test tube. 
Some of these difficulties, however, can be overcome, 
but we have not the space at our command for a 
description of the method. 

Roots can penetrate almost anything that contains 
the requisite amount of moisture; they are like very 
fine hairs and work their way through the interstitial 
spaces ; then when they commence to grow and harden 
up, they crowd the soil granules and make room for 



84 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

themselves ; thus we can understand that the root hair 
of a tree may find an inperceptible pore in a rock, 
eventually swell up, and perhaps split it all to pieces. 

When the subsoil is not wet enough for the roots 
of crops to go into it, they spread over the surface of 
it like a fan ; then if some very wet weather occurs, 
the tips may turn down and work their way in, but 
the root structure is poor and shows it in the crop. 
Root Growth in Subsoils. 

In a week or two from time of sprouting, the 
roots of most crops begin to reach the subsoil under 
the seed bed, then comes the question : Has the sub- 
soil been put in condition by deep plowing to receive 
those roots? 

On the answer to this question depends the crop. 

The root system of crops and trees expands more 
quickly under dry farming methods than under irriga- 
tion or humid farming. 

On my Colorado ranch, the roots of cherry trees 
planted 20 feet apart met in the row in seven years ; 
those of apple trees 40 feet apart in twelve years. The 
roots of the cherry trees attained a depth of about 7 
feet; those of the apples 10 to 15. 

At first I was afraid to plant a commercial orchard ; 
all the agriculturists I consulted said it would be 
impossible to hold enough water for crops above a dry 
subsoil hundreds of feet deep, that capillarity would 
take it all down into the dry ground until there was 
nothing available left. 

In order to try this out, I planted a dozen trees in 
1886, and kept them well cultivated ; at the end of 1890 
I had 10 feet of moisture saved up in the subsoil. I 
naturally began to study the moisture question and 
discovered that active capillarity stopped in my best 
soil at about 17%. This was all I needed; anything 
can be raised on 17% soil and I planted a commercial 
orchard in 1894 after securing 3 feet of moisture by 



ROOTS AND SUBSOILS 85 

fallowing. The profits to date have been about five 
thousand dollars for fruit, less about one thousand for 
trees and expenses. In planting trees, a question often 
asked is, if it would pay to dynamite the ground. I do 
not know ; but what I do know is that the roots of 
trees will go through almost anything but solid rock 
if the moisture conditions are right. 

Absorption of Moisture and Rising of Sap. 

The manner of the absorption of moisture by the 
roots and the rising of the sap have never been satis- 
factorily settled by plant physiologists, and now dry 
farming is beginning to shed some light on this 
subject. 

The old idea from humid countries was as usual 
a conception born of an abundance of water ; that the 
roots absorbed the soil solution by means of osmotic 
currents. In dry farming, farming on film water, we 
believe there are no osmotic currents ; that film water 
cannot support osmosis! 

When a root hair engages a granule, the moisture 
passes into it without any visible return current. It 
is quite possible, however, that osmosis may act where 
there is plenty of water, although it seems certain that 
the roots of dry farm crops do not in any way depend 
upon it. 

The theory of osmosis fitted in admirably with 
the root pressure theory which is to this effect, that 
absorption of the soil solution by osmosis created a 
pressure which caused the sap to rise and that this 
continued absorption caused more pressure and more 
sap to rise and so on. 

It has been only in the last decade that scientists 
have awakened to the fact that a tree will grow for 
weeks without any root ; that a cottonwood, for in- 
stance, may be cut down in April, and it will leaf out 
and not die perhaps until June or July ; that cuttings 
will live and put forth leaves without any root and 



86 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

that in the tropics there are some air plants (in which 
the sap rises) which never have roots. 

Some well known French scientists of Paris de- 
cided to sift this matter further. They discovered first 
that there actually was considerable pressure in the 
sap cells of a tree ; they also found out that when the 
sap was rising, the protoplasm in the cells was ex- 
panding and contracting, we might say sucking or 
pumping, that when it was rising fast, the pumping 
was rapid and vice versa; that when through hard 
frost or some other injury to the tree, the protoplasm 
in the cells was destroyed, the sap ceased to rise in 
those cells. This convinced them that the protoplasm 
had everything to do with the rising of the sap and 
finally microscopic investigation showed the expan- 
sion and contraction of the protoplasm under the stim- 
ulus of heat and light. 

This theory is also in line with everything else 
in nature for everything organic and living is built up 
of protoplasmic cells, from the smallest bacillus which 
is composed of one or two, to man who is composed 
of billions. 

All plants, all cellulose, all wood is built up of 
these cells, every part of the tree or plant. 

The amoeba, one of the lowest microscopic forms 
of animal life, is nothing but one or two of these same 
cells of protoplasmic jelly which floats about in water 
and obtains its nourishment by sucking it in and 
squeezing it out again. This is just what the cell in 
the tree is supposed to do. 

Effect of Heat. 

Biology teaches that every thing that has life can 
convert heat into energy. This seems to be the case 
in the vegetable world ; the trees and plants are more 
or less dormant in winter, but as the heat of the sun 
increases in spring the vegetation warms up, the pro- 
toplasm begins to work, the sap rises. 



ROOTS AND SUBSOILS 87 

Have we any other evidence that the heat does 
the work? Yes, the heat is used up or rather rendered 
latent in the tree by the work it does, and if we reverse 
the process we can get all the heat back again. 

To reduce a tree or any other vegetable matter to 
its original elements we dry it and set fire to it. The 
result is we get so much ashes, so much gas and 
smoke, and so much heat. We have already seen how 
the heat was acquired ; the ashes are the mineral ele- 
ments out of the ground and the gases go back to the 
atmosphere whence they were taken by the leaves. 

If we burn 100 pounds of dry vegetable matter we 
get less than ten pounds of ashes, which means that 
less than one-tenth of a plant or tree comes out of the 
soil. The other nine-tenths which are mainly carbon, 
oxygen and hydrogen are derived from the water and 
atmosphere. 

The main constituent in the composition of vege- 
table matter is carbon acquired by the leaves from the 
carbonic acid gas (carbon dioxide) of the atmosphere. 
The mineral elements are usually less than one-tenth 
although in some soils where there is plenty of lime 
or silica they often approach this amount. Supposing, 
however, they are one-tenth of the total dry weight, 
how strong would the soil solution have to be to de- 
liver this amount of mineral matter to the plant? 
Strength of Soil Solution Necessary. 

This has often been worked out in theory by sci- 
entists, but Professor Atkinson in the number of this 
magazine of December 15th, tells us how it was prac- 
tically tested out by Professor Thom with growing 
plants. According to these experiments it requires 
in ordinary soil somewhere about 400 pounds of water 
to make a pound of dry vegetable matter; we have 
already seen that only about one-tenth of this pound 
comes out of the soil, so that all this 400 pounds of 
water will have to carry will be one-tenth of one pound 



88 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

of mineral matter. A tenth of one pound in 400 is 
only I in 4,000. Therefore a good ordinary soil solu- 
tion may carry only i part of solid matter in 4,000 of 
water. The soil solution is not mud, it is not fine soil, 
it is not even soup or muddy water; it is clear water 
fit to drink ; in fact, some waters used for drinking pur- 
poses are pretty strong soil solutions. 

Dana says that all water out of the ground con- 
tains more or less of the following minerals necessary 
to plant life : Iron, potash, phosphorus, soda, lime, 
sulphur, silica, magnesia, chlorine, etc., but these 
would not be found, of course, in rain or distilled 
water. 

As Professor Atkinson remarks, the richer the 
soil the richer the soil solution, and the richer the 
solution the less water required to make the crop. 

Humus is a tremendous factor in providing a rich 
soil solution not only on account of the predigested 
mineral elements it contains, but on account of the 
acids evolved, which render diflferent elements of the 
soil soluble in water. 

Some hold the opinion that roots are able to strain 
the soil solution, accepting some elements, rejecting 
others. There is little evidence of this. In a soil rich 
in potash, and the soil solution full of silica, we notice 
it (the silica) in all the crops, the same with lime, with 
everything, and when the solution is too alkaline the 
soda goes into the plants and kills them. The proba- 
bility is that since solutions existed before the plants, 
the plants had to adapt themselves to them, or perish 
in the attempt. 



CHAPTER X 

The First Year on a Dry Farm 

DRY farming is done mostly on moisture already- 
conserved in the soil. Nature does not do this 
for us, we have to do it for ourselves ; there- 
fore, although I might draw up a lovely program for 
the new settler whereby he might raise everything 
desirable for himself and family and the stock, it 
would be just so much waste paper if the weather 
happened to be dry the first year and no moisture al- 
ready in the ground. This is a condition any new set- 
tler may be called upon to face and he should be pre- 
pared for it. AVhen a dry farmer understands his 
business there is nothing to worry about in a dry year 
any more than there is for the business man when 
times are dull, but his first year is a different matter, 
and if he should happen to find it a dry one, which may 
come to pass once in every ten years or so, he cannot 
raise very much ; but he can use his time to such 
advantage, that he can get his money back and more 
too, the next year. 

What to Do First. 

The thing to do is to plow and break sod, and not 
to quit or give up simply because the ground is dry. 
Let it be thoroughly understood that there is no harm 
whatever in dry plowing, provided it is not planted 
until thoroughly soaked up and settled. The tilth of 
the soil at the time of plowing matters nothing; but at 
time of planting it matters everything, and the rough- 
est kind of land can be put in shape after the snows 
of winter and the rains of spring. 

For this work we need horse power and there is 
no sense in starting to dry farm with ponies. If a 
walking plow is used, three horses weighing at least 



go PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

1300 apiece are needed ; the Spalding is the only riding 
plow fit for dry farm purposes, it does beautiful work 
and requires four horses at least. The new settler will 
find himself surrounded by neighbors, some of whom 
live from hand to mouth by skimming the surface ; but 
let him beware of their advice, for his whole future 
and that of his family may depend on the work he does 
this first year. 

Shallow Plowing Courts Failure. 

It is true that in a good year, like last for instance, 
the surface farmer may raise even thirty bushels to 
the acre, but every cent he makes will go like water 
as soon as a dry year comes ; whereas the deep plow- 
ers can make forty to fifty bushels in good years and 
close to thirty in dry years. If everybody plowed 
deep, 8 inches for sod and at least 10 for old land, there 
would be no dry years. After the first year the deep 
plower always has moisture, he has money in his 
pocket, he doesn't worry when the dry weather comes, 
he mulches his crops and goes fishing. 

If the farmer goes on his new place in the fall of 
the year, and there is considerable moisture under- 
neath the sod, it would be safe to plant winter wheat 
if he can get it in by September; but if the ground is 
medium dry it would be much better to plant rye 
which is the safer crop of the two, and can be planted 
any time up to the holidays and used as grain or cut 
for early hay the following June. 

Plowing can be continued sometimes more or less 
all winter ; a friend of mine near Denver was plowing 
this winter with 2 inches of frost in the ground, using 
a Spalding. 

Corn and Sorghum Best for First Crop. 

If the new settler goes on his place in the spring, 
he had better confine himself to such crops as corn and 
sorghum. 

To attempt to raise small grain on newly plowed 



THE FIRST YEAR ON A DRY FARM 91 

sod land which has not been fallowed, is taking des- 
perate chances, but if he should determine to take 
such a chance, then I would advise him to plant hard 
Russian wheat. The earlier the ground is plowed the 
better the chance for a crop. 

Corn land even plowed in March will yield more 
heavily than the same land plowed in May. After a 
wet snow before the frost is all out the farmer can 
often cut the upper two inches of the sod with the disc 
thus making the plowing not only easier but quicker, 
w^hen all the frost is out and the land ready for the 
plow. 

Reasons for Deep Breaking. 

In breaking sod 8 or 9 inches the idea is to make 
a good deep seed bed, raise a good crop at the start, 
and also convert the grass and roots into humus by 
burying them where the atmosphere cannot steal the 
gases ; which will keep the field fertile for years. 

To advise the plowing of sod 2 or 3 inches, taking 
off the very cream of the soil, leaving it in the sun to 
be burned up and dissipated into the atmosphere is 
a crime against agriculture and an outrage to our in- 
telligence. 

It takes work, but it pays in the end to thoroughly 
fine the surface of the new breaking before seeding; 
my rule has always been : Work it enough so that it 
can be cultivated. 

The easiest way to do this is to have one team 
plowing, and another discing and harrowing alter- 
nately, catching it fresh from the plow; but if the 
farmer has only one team, then I would advise plow- 
ing two hours, then discing and harrowing two hours. 
On a hot day, sod will commence to bake in a couple 
of hours ; it should be worked up as quickly as plowed. 
No Packing Necessary. 

If this is properly done no packing is needed, but 
if the farmer wishes to flatten out the sod with a roller 



92 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

there is no harm in it for sod is so elastic that it is 
almost impossible to injure it by packing unless it con- 
tains a heavy percentage of clay. When the sod is 
disced before plowing and then disced again on the 
other side after plowing it can be readily understood 
that it is pretty well cut to pieces. It was all very 
well to plow sod shallow and sit on the fence and wait 
for it to rot in grandfather's time, but this is not an 
attitude worthy of the 20th century farmer with 20th 
century implements. Flax is a good crop to plant on 
the new break and if the weather is favorable a good 
crop may be secured the first year. It is often said 
that flax will grow on shallow plowing; the truth is, 
it will stand poor plowing better than some other 
things ; but like everything else, the ordinary yields 
can be doubled by good work. 

Potatoes sometimes do better on sod than on any- 
thing else, but will grow only on certain soils, and no 
one yet has ever been able to determine what consti- 
tutes a potato soil ; therefore the only way is to try it, 
or find out from the neighbors. 

Plant Alfalfa As Early As Possible. 

If the new settler has started his farm in time to 
do some fall plowing he should certainly plant some 
alfalfa in the spring. The whole thing in getting a 
stand of alfalfa is to plow deep, and a few acres should 
be planted if only for an experiment either in rows 
or broadcasted or drilled. 

By planting a few acres every year the farmer 
soon has an abundance of feed, and while he is waiting 
for the alfalfa, fall rye will be found the best thing 
for hay where quantity is desired. 

Winter Wheat the Money Crop. 

In the spring or early summer when the crops 
which he has decided to plant are all in, what can he 
turn his hand to next? Now is the time to plow and 
prepare for winter wheat. This is the great grain 



THE FIRST YEAR ON A DRY FARM 93 

crop for the farmer who wishes to raise something 
for market. 

If the ground is properly prepared by deep plow- 
ing as recommended above, there is no reason that 
land put into this grain cannot pay for itself, the 
first crop. 

After the plowing there is nothing much to do 
but keep the weeds out until planting time in August 
or September. The best way to do this and at the 
same time catch all the moisture that comes, is to 
disc and cross disc without lapping. This ridges the 
land in small squares and will hold any cloudburst that 
comes unless there is considerable slope. 

When planting time comes the very best wheat to 
plant is Turkey Red, the finest selected seed. I have 
tried many varieties ; some freeze out or tramp out 
when the cattle are on, some are not vigorous and in- 
clined to rust, and some in mild winters and wet 
springs will outyield it, but on a general average it 
beat any other variety we can plant in general hardi- 
ness, drouth resistance and yield. 

For market purposes spring wheat should never 
be planted on the dry farm in a climate where winter 
wheat can be grown. 

Trees On New Land. 

A question often asked by the new-comer is : "Can 
I plant trees or alfalfa on newly broken sod?" Yes, 
both. The trouble with trees is allowing the sod to 
get into the hole and make air spaces around the 
roots; this will burn out anything. To avoid this 
trouble is very easy. Plow so as to leave a dead fur- 
row where the row of trees is to be planted ; then take 
the plow and work up and down this dead furrow until 
all the loose sod is banked up on either side and dig 
the holes in the straight dirt using what you throw out 
to cover the roots when planting. 

As far as alfalfa is concerned, planting it on sod 



94 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

got a black eye from the surface farmers, for nothing 
on earth can be expected to do its best on new land 
plowed 3 inches. Alfalfa will do much better on sod 
than on old land if the soil is light and the seed bed 
prepared as we recommend. On heavy soil it will do 
well either on sod or old land. I rather prefer the 
new break myself when properly plowed 8 or 9 inches 
and well fined down. 

Implements Needed. 

As regards implements on the dry farm besides 
the plow, a good steel lever harrow and a reversible 
disc are needed to prepare the seed bed ; an ordinary 
corn cultivator with three blades in each row, six in 
all, is good for all row crops; and for late cultivating 
of wheat there is nothing like the spring tooth weeder. 

As far as the packer is concerned, I find that land 
plowed a month or two before planting, any fallowed 
land in fact, is better without it. When land is plowed 
for immediate planting an extra discing and a harrow- 
ing equals the effect of packing and yields about one- 
half a bushel more per acre. 

Some assert that it is easier to reduce sod by first 
packing it before tearing it up with the disc and har- 
row, others never use a roller or packer of any kind ; 
but if such an implement is needed the combined clod 
crusher and packer is obviously the best ; this is made 
in the usual model, but with the wheels rough and 
corrugated at the edges. 

Dry Farming Profitable. 

Dry farming is a very profitable variety of agri- 
culture at present because if the farmer follows the 
deep plowing system he can produce crops much 
cheaper than the irrigator and yet obtain irrigation 
prices, and it will be a great many years before the 
3- to 6-inch plowers abandon their present methods 
and begin to flood the market with crops which will 
eventually reduce prices. The surface system of west- 



THE FIRST YEAR ON A DRY FARM 95 

ern farming which means raising crops by intensive 
cultivation instead of deep plowing means long hours, 
hard work and small crops. 

It takes very little more time and work to plow 
10 inches than it does 6, it means simply one more 
horse to the plow, and the subsequent cultivation nec- 
essary is seldom more than to keep the weeds out. 
Why Farms Were Abandoned. 

Hundreds of settlers in eastern Colorado aban- 
doned their farms in 1892 to 1894 because they started 
in plowing their sod 2 to 3 inches in 1893 ; then '94 
was dry, the top of their subsoil was dry because there 
was not enough plowed sod to mulch it ; they could 
not get the plow point in, and the plow down ; there 
was no chance to make a seed bed and little or noth- 
ing was raised. 

There was another side to this picture, however. 
Some came from the New England states and plowed 
8 or 9 inches ; a few came from Germany and Sweden ; 
they plowed deep because they knew no other way; 
every one of these staid ; they are rich men today. 

For the guidance of the new settler, I offer the fol- 
lowing rules which I have found by nearly forty years' 
experience to be of value in making money at dry 
farming : 

Rules to Follow. 

Keep all land mulched as far as possible winter 
and summer, the exception being that land plowed in 
the fall for spring planting is best left in the rough 
state until the frost is out when evaporation starts ; 
then, however, it should be harrowed over. 

To catch run-off all crops should be cultivated 
across the slope rather than up and down with the 
slope. Fallowed land should never be packed. Fal- 
low land for a few months before planting; a few 
weeks are better than nothing. When raising small 
grain plow in the spring for fall crops and in the fall 



96 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

for spring crops. When there is no moisture in the 
land for winter wheat, plant rye which is just as profit- 
able. In planting alfalfa pack very lightly in the seed 
rows and not at all the rest of the surface. When 
planting shade or orchard trees set out a whole row 
and keep them cultivated. 

When there is a good mulch on your corn in dry 
weather it does more harm than good to keep on 
cultivating. 

Plowing dry in the fall is better than no plowing, 
for such land nearly always becomes soaked and set- 
tled with the winter and spring precipitation, when it 
can be fined down with a little discing and harrowing. 

Never list corn in the hard ground without pre- 
vious plowing. 

Always provide a deep seed bed for alfalfa and 
never plant anything with it. 

Never disc in a crop on the stubble, the only ex- 
ception being rye for hay. 

Try to mulch every crop at the critical period, 
which is when the spring rains have stopped and the 
summer rains have not begun. 

Plant largely of the surest crops, such as corn, 
sorghum, rye, winter wheat and flax. 

Get your feed first and then buy the cattle to eat 
it. Plow deeper if you can, but make the minimum 
for sod 8 inches, for old land lo, provided, of course, 
that you have the soil. 



CHAPTER XI 

Keeping Track of Moisture 

OUR previous articles on soil moisture aroused so 
much interest in this matter and we received 
so many pertinent questions that the time 
seems opportune to present to the farmers a way for 
determining themselves the action of moisture in their 
more or less dry soils as opposed to the action of water 
in the wet soils of the humid states which so far are 
the only soil and water physics in print, and which are 
taught by many agriculturists without regard to local 
conditions. 

AVith a few simple implements, some of which he 
can make himself, the farmer can tell, by a few min- 
utes' work every day, exactly what moisture there is 
in any particular field, how much any crops left in 
the field when taken ofif, whether there is enough to 
justify planting another crop without any further fal- 
lowing, whether the moisture is coming up or down, 
what kind of soil culture accumulates most moisture, 
and what kind conserves it the best. 

Determine Amount of Moisture. 

If he wishes to go further than this and is pretty 
good at figures he can, by comparing his moisture 
notes of vacant blocks of soil with those of blocks oc- 
cupied by crops, determine for himself what amount 
of moisture any tree or crop is using up or has used 
up during the growing season. When a man takes his 
soil auger and finds that he has two or three feet of 
moist subsoil under his lo-inch plowing and only one 
under his 3- or 4-inch, he has an object lesson on his 
own place which impresses him more than any insti- 
tute talk. 



98 



PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 



The Soil Auger. 
This soil auger is the most important implement 
of all, and every farmer should have one. To make 
one, the first thing to get is a common 2-inch wood 
auger, such as any carpenter uses ; the blacksmith 
must then w^eld it onto a piece of common iron gas- 
pipe about 4 feet long, with the ordinary thread for 
screwing onto another piece at the end. A two-way 
right-angled joint, a T in fact, is used 
for the handle, and by taking this 
off at any time more pipe can be 
screwed on, and the length increased 
as much as desired. This implement 
is of as much value to the man about 
to buy a ranch as it is to the man on 
his own farm, for if he takes his auger 
along he can sample the soil just as a 
grocer does cheese, and by bringing 
up dirt in the flanges of the auger 
can tell what kind of soil or subsoil 
he is thinking of purchasing. 

If every buyer were to do this 
instead of ''going it blind," we would 
not hear of so many cases in which men have bought 
ranches and when they came to plow, finding out they 
had no soil. 

Method of Testing for Moisture. 
The method of testing soil for moisture is very 
simple. We take the auger, bore a hole as deep as 
we want it, then bring up a chunk of dirt sticking to 
the auger like a cork on a corkscrew, this we take 
home and weigh it, keeping say just lo ounces of it; 
we take this lo ounces of dirt and place it in an oven 
until all the moisture is baked out of it without burn- 
ing it, which would take out the humus. 

We then weigh it again and it weighs only 9 
ounces, i ounce has gone; what was that ounce? 



Soil Auger Used 
in Testing Soils 
and Subsoils. 



KEEPING TRACK OF MOISTURE 99 

t 

Water. In speaking of soil we usually use the words 

per cent or percentage to denote proportion in a hun- 
dred parts; therefore according to our test, if in ten 
parts of damp soil we found one of water we would 
find ten in a hundred, and we would call that soil 10% 
wet, or soil carrying 10% of moisture. 

The percentage method is the easiest way to cal- 
culate moisture because supposing, for instance, we 
wish to discover how much moisture is contained in 
a given block or cube of dirt ; all we have to do is to 
take the percentage as above described, say one test 
for each foot and then figure out the average percent- 
age for the whole block ; we then reduce the result to 
inches and know just how much we have in the field 
or in any particular cube of dirt. 

The percentage differs as the weight of the soil 
varies, sandy soils, for instance, weighing heavier than 
clay soils, but an approximate estimate in every-day 
average soil would be about 2 inches of water to every 
foot of dirt carrying 10% moisture, therefore, if the 
soil carried only 5%, a foot of dirt would carry only 
I inch, and so on. 

This refers to average soil weighing, when dry, 
about 90 pounds to the cubic foot. Sandy soil will 
often go no pounds to the cubic foot, and some clays 
are as light as 75 pounds ; a good average for ordinairy 
loams is about 90 pounds ; these are, of course, dry 
soil weights. 

Application to Practical Work. 

The next part of our program is to consider the 
practical application of these moisture studies to the 
work of the every-day farmer. We will suppose that 
this gentleman has been raising a large crop of corn, 
which has just been hauled off the field, and shocked 
in the corral ; he takes his auger, makes one or two 
borings in different parts of the field, tests the dirt 
and finds he has left in the field 4 feet of moist dirt 



loo PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

carrying on an average 7/^% of moisture; can he risk 
planting winter wheat on that, or can he not? 

Seven and one-half per cent means about i^ 
inches to the foot; therefore, he has in the 4 feet only 
about 6 inches of water ; but here is a most important 
point to be remembered, that the last 5% of moisture 
in the ground is unavailable, for when the water be- 
comes that scarce in the ground the roots of plants are 
unable to extract it ; therefore, we may as well sub- 
tract that 5%, which leaves him only 2 inches avail- 
able water in 4 feet of moist soil. If the farmer is a 
cautious man, and the fall is fine and dry, he will plant 
no wheat with this amount of moisture, but perhaps 
take a chance on rye. 

He will then go over to his fallow land, which was 
plowed 10 or 12 inches deep in May, he screws in the 
auger, up comes a lump of wet dirt which will ball 
in the hand, he has 5 feet of 15% dirt. Ah! he thinks 
this is something like he figures it out; after deducting 
the unavailable 5% he has 10% left, 2 inches of water 
to each foot of dirt — 10 inches in the 5 feet — the wheat 
goes in. 

Determining Amount of Water Used by Crops. 

In order to acquire an approximate idea of what 
a crop is using up, these same experiments must be 
made in the soil in which the crop is planted, and in 
some soil of the same variety in which nothing is 
planted ; but all other conditions must correspond. 

A patch of oats is planted, a small corner of the 
same field is left fallow ; it all contained the same 
amount of moisture at the start ; but when the oats 
have ripened and been harvested, we find with the 
help of the soil auger, that for as many feet as there 
is any moisture, the ground contains only 4 inches ; 
while in the corner which was not planted we find 14 
inches ; now it is easy to figure from this that the crop 
used at least 10 inches in the making; for the precipi- 



KEEPING TRACK OF MOISTURE loi 



tation was the same on both, the evaporation about 
the same (excepting a trifling amount saved by the 
shade of the oats) and all other conditions approxi- 
mately the same. Apropos of this matter I might re- 
mark that in average weather, not too hot, it is my 
experience on 8 inches ; 1 mean by that, 8 inches of 
water conserved in the ground. 

The same test may be applied to trees. In mak- 
ing tests in the orchard in dry weather or in fallow 
land we often go through a dry crust into 17% moist 
soil, and yet, as long as there is a good mulch, this 
moisture does not waste, to any extent, by evapora- 
tion, neither does it move by capillarity into the dry 
crust above or into the dry subsoil 5 or 6 feet below. 
Finding How Capillarity Works. 
To observe the action of capillarity or root growth 
in the soil, there is nothing better than a wooden box 
about 18 inches or 2 feet deep, of which one side is 
glass. An aperture can be cut in the side of almost 
any box and a piece of glass, slightly larger than the 
aperture, inserted on the inside; the dirt will hold it 
in place. 

We are told by some agriculturists that there is 
no reason to plow deep because the moisture is always 
coming up out of the subsoil to the roots of the crops 
in the seed bed by capillary action, and Campbell says 

pack the seed bed 
to create capillary 
action between the 
subsoil and the seed 
bed. Some farmers 
who have never 
tried this out write 
that they are afraid 
to plow under ma- 

Glass Front Box by Means of Which nure Or litter for 
Moisture Movements and Root Growth r r • j- 

May Be Easily Studied. iCar of impcdmg 




102 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

this action. Although nearly everyone believes it, the 
whole thing is a delusion and cannot possibly happen 
unless free water is present in the subsoil. In a former 
article I have already given the scientific reasons for 
this, but seeing is usually believing; so let us try it out 
in the box so that we can base our farming on facts as 
we find them. This action is supposed to take place in 
dry weather, the water from the subsoil reinforcing 
the moisture in the seed bed. 

Testing for Practical Capillary Movements. 

Therefore, in order to test this out ; as soon as dry 
weather commences we dig down about 2 feet into 
the subsoil and half fill the box with the dirt ; if the 
soil was much loosened in the process, it should be 
tamped as solid as it was in the field. We then fill 
the upper half of the box with dry dirt, or nearly dry 
dirt, and watch results through the glass. The mois- 
ture line is easy to see, the dry dirt is light in color, 
the damp dirt dark. 

The box should be placed in a cool room and the 
line watched every day. 

Does it move up? Does it spread up and out in 
the dirt above until all of it is one color? Unfortu- 
nately for the old theories it will not do this unless 
there is plenty of free water somewhere down below ; 
a condition rarely found on the dry farm. 

Someone says pack it and it will move. Take a 
board and place it on top of the dirt inside the box 
and pile 100 pounds of rocks on it, then try 500 — does 
it rise? 

Is there any way we can make it rise? Only by 
supplying free water, which is never found in a true 
dry farm subsoil excepting for a few days after a 
storm before it has had time to soak down and become 
film water. Farms on river bottoms and over water 
at 9 or 10 feet cannot be considered dry farms. There 
are many places along the Missouri, Yellowstone, 



KEEPING TRACK OF MOISTURE 103 

Musselshell and other rivers where the water is found 
a few feet from the surface and the farms are virtually 
sub-irrigated ; such lands are invaluable for alfalfa. 
Amount of Water Carried by Subsoil. 

A true dry farm subsoil after drainage (action of 
capillarity and gravity) has ceased usually carries 
about 15% to 17% of water; if it carries much more 
than this, then there is free water in the interstitial 
spaces and drainage has not yet ceased ; but it seldom 
lasts for more than a few days after precipitation. In 
making these experiments there is no need to trust 
entirely to sight ; samples may be tested from any part 
of the box by the method previously explained. Then 
it is thoroughly understood by our farmers that in 
dry weather there is no chance of getting the mois- 
ture up to the crops, they will see the necessity of 
plowing deep in order to get the crops down to the 
moisture. 

Free water, or rather water over and above what 
each granule can retain as a film, is always found in 
the top 3 or 4 inches for several days after wet weather, 
and after harrowing we find it next morning coming 
to the surface ; this, however, is not from the subsoil — 
it is simply the top inch robbing the second and third. 
When the soil contains free water it will wet the hand 
or anything in close contact with it; if it will not do 
this, it is safe to estimate the percentage at less 
than 20. 

How Far Will Water Go in Dry Soil. 

To discover how far water will go in dry earth, 
it can be introduced into the box through a tube or 
poured on the surface. When water is introduced into 
the center of the dry dirt near the glass the farmer will 
be surprised to see how little of it rises by capillarity, 
even with plenty of free water the upward pull of cap- 
illarity in soil is not equal to the combined downward 
pull of capillarity and gravity (weight). 



104 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

After a day or so when all capillarity has ceased 
in the box and the free water drained off ; if the farmer 
takes some of the wet dirt and tests it he will find it 
holds somewhere from 14 to 17%, according to his soil, 
and this will be the percentage his subsoil will hold 
against any force or agency but evaporation. How- 
ever well a field is mulched there is always a slight 
evaporation on account of the air between the gran- 
ules ; but under lo-inch plowing evaporation may not 
amount to one-fourth of i % a month ; but under 
shallow plowing it may amount to 2 or 3%. Therefore, 
in fallowed land with deep plowing and a fair amount 
of cultivation, we may say that water stays where it 
is put, until the crops use it up, and transpire it back 
again into the atmosphere ; otherwise it would be im- 
possible to dry farm. The box with the glass window 
may be used also for observing roots ; corn or small 
grain may be planted close to the glass and the roots 
after a while will show through ; even germination 
may be investigated and corn tested by planting the 
seeds under the dirt right against the glass. 

Dr. Alway, of the University of Nebraska, who 
teaches physics, mostly from experiments in the field, 
tried these matters out pretty thoroughly when he 
planted wheat and other plants in damp dirt in cylin- 
ders ; he tells us the roots went down 6 feet to mois- 
ture instead of the moisture coming up to the roots, 
and the plants grew and produced seed or grain under 
a roof where no rain could reach them, and the tem- 
perature up to 100 and 124°. 

Prevailing Opinion on Capillarity Wrong. 

Dr. Alway supports my contention that the pre- 
vailing opinion about capillarity expressed by Camp- 
bell and others is wrong, in these words : ''The pre- 
vailing opinion as to the extent to which water is lost 
from dry land subsoils by evaporation following up- 
ward capillarity movement appears to be without 



KEEPING TRACK OF MOISTURE 105 

experimental foundation." Nothing could be clearer 
than this. 

Over Aeration. 

Manure or straw or cornstalks can be plowed 
under without cutting off capillarity which doesn't 
exist; but not too much in one place on account of 
over aeration which burns the crops. Ten loads of 
manure to the acre can hurt nothing, and the best way 
to apply it is to disc it in on the surface in the fall and 
plow the whole thing under, 10 inches deep in the 
spring. A field which has been regularly manured 
and contains a goodly amount of humus will hold 20% 
of moisture against drainage, while the same soil with- 
out the manuring may not hold more than 15%. 



CHAPTER XII 

Dry Fanning for Profit 

DRY farming in any locality where the soil is 
good and deep and the precipitation 15 inches 
or over should be very profitable work; but 
if we take a trip through any of the dry states and 
visit at many of the farms the conclusion seems to be 
forced upon us that many of the dry farmers are farm- 
ing for fun, not for profit. 

One year not very long ago I was visiting with 
Dr. Cook up at Cheyenne, and inspecting his fine crops 
raised on 9-inch plowing and only 3 inches of precipi- 
tation during the growing season ; but with the help 
of several inches conserved by plowing in the fall. 
While there I visited a ranch about twenty miles from 
the city and a most astonishing sight met my gaze. 
I beheld about 100 acres of oats, every one about 5 or 
6 inches high and the whole field headed out and 
more or less green. 

When the owner came along I said to him, "How 
on earth did you get such a peculiar looking field of 
oats?" 

"Isn't it a freak?" he said. "You know I don't 
know very much about dry farming, and I read in 
some literature to plow sod only about 2 or 3 inches, 
which, not having heavy horses, suited me down to 
the ground. After plowing I flattened out the sod 
with a roller, ran a slanted harrow over it and put in 
the oats." 

Dwarfed by Shallow Plowing. 

"Well," I said, "as an exhibit of plant dwarfing, 
which they do so much of in Japan, it is one of the 
most wonderful sights I have ever beheld." 



DRY FARMING FOR PROFIT 107 

We then sent for a spade, and started to examine 
the oats ; we found that the sod was simply a mass of 
roots like those of a plant in a flower pot, and when 
we pulled up the oats the sod came with them. 

We could not find a root anywhere which had 
penetrated the soil underneath, and, of course, this 
explained the mystery; the oats were root-bound in 
2 inches of sod. 

The trouble had been that the 2-inch covering was 
not enough to hold the moisture in the subsoil and its 
surface below the sod being dry the roots could not 
possibly get into it, but the crop acquiring a little 
moisture from passing showers was able to keep alive 
and make a stunted growth. 

This man got nothing but a little grazing off his 
field, while another farmer in the same county who 
had broken his sod 8 inches in the previous fall raised 
45 bushels of oats to the acre. 

The Usual Method Followed. 

This man of the stunted oats intended to backset 
his field the next year and waste some more seed try- 
ing to farm on the other side of that 2-inch sod. I 
eventually persuaded him to plow under the whole 
thing 8 or 9 inches deep that same fall and put it into 
Turkey Red. He rented two extra horses, which cost 
him $50, and next year took off 33 bushels of hard 
wheat per acre. This is the difference between farm- 
ing for fun and farming for profit. I must admit, how- 
ever, that it is a little harder work, as well as better 
work, doing a good job of plowing, than it is to sit on a 
sulky and plow 2 inches and then backset it and play 
shuttlecock with the pieces of sod until they wear out. 
Deep Plowing Saves Labor in Packing. 

There is a class of farmers which never get 
beyond 6-inch plowing; but they work night and day 
with packers, cultivators and discs; they put as much 
work into 50 acres as will do very well for 100 properly 



io8 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

maneuvered. They raise, once in a while perhaps, 20 
or even 30 bushels per acre in a wet year, but in aver- 
age more or less dry seasons only about 10, and their 
regular average for ten 3''ears or so would not be 15. 
The labor expense on a crop of grain runs over 10 
bushels, or rather the price thereof, so that practically 
speaking, these men are making the v/ages of day 
laborers only. 

What is the remedy? Deeper plowing and avoid- 
ing wasted effort. 

Wasted Efforts in Farming. 

It is wasted effort to endeavor to raise a crop on 
3 inches of sod which requires 4 feet of root room. It 
is wasted effort to plow old land 6 inches and raise 
10 to 20 bushels when by plowing 12 at an increase of 
cost of 50 cents an acre you can raise 40. It is wasted 
effort to try to save a crop by intensive cultivation 
when good plowing at the start would have assured a 
profitable yield. 

It is often wasted effort to plant a crop in July 
which ought to be in by May, and to plant one in June 
which should be in by March ; and yet these things 
are done on hundreds of farms. Cultivation at the 
proper time is absolutely necessary for conservation 
purposes ; but after deep plowing it need not be nearly 
so intensive as cultivation after shallow plowing, and 
for some crops when the plowing is right, enough cul- 
tivation to keep the weeds out will often suffice. 

It is waste of time and money to cultivate crops 
between rains; just in time for another crust to form 
and have to go at it again. Light rains and even wind 
storms will often restore the mulch by filling up the 
crevices through which evaporation takes place. 
The Critical Period. 

The time to cultivate everything, the most critical 
period in the life of the crop, is when the drouth sets 
in. This usually occurs at the end of spring rains, be- 



DRY FARMING FOR PROFIT 109 

fore the summer rains have begun ; at this period 
everything should have a good mulch to carry it 
through the usual dry spell. 

To cultivate corn or any other row crop every 
week or so just because the weather is dry is absurd; 
so long as there is a good mulch it should be left alone, 
for over-tillage will create dust which will only blow 
away or plug the interstitial spaces and prevent ab- 
sorption when a storm arises. 

Another point on the tillage question that we 
must consider is this : That although cultivation de- 
velopes mineral plant food it burns up the humus, and 
since these effects are about a stand-off, we as dry 
farmers can afford to ignore all these functions of culti- 
vating excepting the killing of weeds and the conserva- 
tion of moisture. 

The Function of Air in Soil. 

We sometimes hear agriculturists say we must 
cultivate to get air into the soil. Of course, this is 
mere nonsense, a relic of eastern farming ; we culti- 
vate to keep the air out of the soil, for there is always 
more air than necessary to support bacterial life and 
all chemical combinations which may take place with- 
out trying to add more, but in the humid states it is 
conceivable that the surface may become waterlogged 
and air-tight, and this injurious condition may be 
relieved by cultivation. 

Air moves more freely through a crust than 
through the mulch, but so long as the soil moisture is 
attached to the granules and the interstitial spaces are 
more or less clear, which is the usual condition of 
dry farm soil, there is absolutely and always some air 
movement and some evaporation, however slight, even 
through the mulch. We put the lid on by cultivation, 
but it is only a lid, it is not a cork in a bottle. 

Lots of time and money may be saved in the 
spring by plowing just as soon as the frost is out of 



no PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

the ground, and even before this period sod may be 
disced on the surface after a thaw to make it easier 
plowing for the horses later on. 

It is a money-making method to plow corn land 
deep in the fall and cross list in the spring ; but failing 
this, March plowing for corn will increase the yield 
over May plowing by several bushels. 

When corn land is plowed early nearly all the 
weeds, especially Russian thistles, can be extermi- 
nated before planting. 

The cheapest way to clean up weedy land is to 
plant it for two years to fall rye ; as soon as the crop 
is off it should be plowed and clean fallowed until the 
last of August, and then replanted about 40 pounds 
to the acre. 

Plan Your Work Ahead. 

The farmer should draw up his program for the 
year ahead of time so that he can foresee the work 
for each week, and almost for each day in the week 
and be prepared for it. 

He can then alternate the crops so that all the 
harvesting or plowing or cultivating will not be neces- 
sary at one and the same time. For instance, as soon 
as the frost is out of the fall plowed ground in March 
he commences drilling in his spring grain ; as soon 
as that is done he goes to plowing for corn and 
sorghum ; while this land is fallowing and absorb- 
ing moisture, he plows up an area for winter wheat; 
by the time that is done he can clean weeds out 
of the corn and cane land; then alfalfa may be 
planted and after that, about May 15th or 20th, the 
corn can go in ; by the time the corn is all in, the Kaffir 
corn, sorghum or milo may be planted ; when that is 
done it is about time to harrow the corn, and after that 
the cane. If there is any fall rye it can usually be 
mowed for hay about this time, also the first cutting 
of alfalfa, and after this will come the cultivation of 



DRY FARMING FOR PROFIT iii 

the row crops and a discing of the summer-fallow for 
winter wheat. The harvesting of the grain crops 
follows closely, and perhaps a discing or plowing be- 
hind the harvester. The season then closes with the 
cutting of corn and sorghum and the planting of win- 
ter wheat and rye. 

It requires some careful thinking to plan the sea- 
son's campaign, plant the right amount of each crop 
and arrange all these operations in their most eco- 
nomic sequence, so that one man or two with their 
teams, as the case may be, have their time fully occu- 
pied without getting up in the middle of the night, and 
without any dead time. 

Adjuncts in Dry Farming. 

Cattle and poultry are almost necessary adjuncts 
to the payable dry farm. A dairy herd is always a 
good investment if a creamery is handy, for the milk- 
ing is done before breakfast and perhaps with a safe 
old plug the children can deliver the cream on the way 
to school. 

A hundred chickens properly looked after will 
use up all the waste and buy groceries for a fair sized 
family, but if the accommodations are not ample, it 
will pay much better to keep fifty. Broadly speaking, 
any farmer can make chickens pay if he raises their 
feed, but to buy feed and then make them pay requires 
an expert, and chicken experts are about as rare as the 
dry farmer who plows lo inches. 

A side line for dry farmers who can keep going 
i6 hours a day is bees, for much of this work can be 
done in the evening, but the rewards are not always 
sure, for like fruit there are good years and bad years ; 
nevertheless there is money in it provided the neigh- 
borhood is right ; plenty of alfalfa and other bee 
pasture. 

Keeping enough hogs to use up the skim milk 
is a good economy on any farm, and in places where 



112 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

there is a demand for young weanling pigs, there is 
money in two or three good sows. The rule to follow 
in this matter is: Get you feed first and then buy 
your stock ; don't go ahead and stock up your 
ranch until you know what you can raise, otherwise 
you are almost sure to come out at the little end 
of the horn. 

It isn't the stock that make the money, it is the 
feed you put into them, and since you require the best 
possible returns for your feed it never pays to feed or 
raise poor stock. 

Plant the Best Seed. 

For the same reason always plant the best seed, 
for there is nothing that will cut the profits so much 
as putting time and labor into raising half crops from 
poor strains, and it should be remembered in this con- 
nection that the most expensive seeds are not always 
the best. Seeds obtained from the farmer who raises 
them are nearly always better and often germinate 
better than those from the seed house. 

Alfalfa is a most profitable crop in connection 
with the dairy, it has to be planted only once ; it grows 
while you wait, and if the gophers are kept out seems 
to last almost forever. 

I hear one of our readers say: "I have tried al- 
falfa and can't make it go." I know, but try it again ; 
ten acres of alfalfa will increase the valuation of your 
farm by $i,ooo. 

If you plow 10 inches deep and your soil is good 
there is no question about getting a stand. It is a race 
between the roots and the drouth ; if the roots get 
down ahead of the drouth the game is won ; lo-inch 
plowing handicaps the drouth and gives the race to 
the roots. 

The Dry Farm Orchard. 

How about an orchard on the dry farm? If you 
are in the midst of a dry, bare country where there 



DRY FARMING FOR PROFIT 113 

is no fruit for miles around, you can make money on 
the side by raising cherries.* People will flock in from 
hundreds of miles, camp at your place and go home 
loaded with cherries to put up for winter, and they 
never seem to get enough. This is how it works on 
my ranch, but it should be considered only as a side 
issue, I believe, for it is not safe to gamble on the 
climate — we may have four or five good years and then 
three or four bad ones, or perhaps a hailstorm. The 
cultivation of a 20-acre orchard will not cost in 
labor much more than $60 a year, and any year after 
the first six it may bring in $2,000 or $3,000 in one 
season. 

On my ranch we sell our dry raised cherries for 15 
cents a gallon when they run about ten gallons to the 
tree ; when five or less we ask 20 cents, at which prices 
the buyers do their own picking, and glad to have the 
chance. 

The hardiest and best bearers are the Mont- 
morency and Morello, they commence to bear the year 
after planting, paying expenses almost from the start, 
and at five or six years old yield a heavy profit when 
the season is right. 

Dry Farm Profits Greater Than Irrigated. 

I believe the profits from the dry farm properly 
conducted are greater than those of the irrigated farm, 
for although the area has to be larger to raise the 
same amount of crop, the expense account is so much 
smaller, and so much less capital invested. The prin- 
cipal economic factor is deep plowing, the difference 
between 6-inch and lo-inch plowing will often double 



*It should be remembered that Mr. Parsons' recommenda- 
tions as to varieties of fruit trees to plant on the dry farm apply 
to conditions in eastern Colorado. Our Horticultural Societies do 
not recommend cherries except for the southern part of South 
Dakota. In their place the hardy plums may well be used as well 
as the plum-sandcherry hybrids. In deciding on varieties of fruit 
trees to plant in your localities consult the Fruit List of your 
state horticultural society. 



114 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

the crop, and comparing the two side by side in the 
same soil I find the following: 

Deep Plowing Means Returns Every Year. 
Although good fair crops are sometimes produced 
in good years on 6-inch plowing, yet when dry years 
come there is no comparison ; the drouth cuts the 
crops the first dry year on 6-inch land at least half ; 
on lo-inch land not more than io%, while the second 
dry year will burn out almost everything on the 6-inch 
plowing, it will not cut the crops on the lo-inch more 
than half. This is not guess work, but exactly what 
happened in my neighborhood in Colorado in the two 
consecutive dry years of 1910 and 191 1; precipitation 
on my ranch 8 and 6 inches, respectively, our normal 
being 14 to 15 inches. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Suggestions for Dry Farmers 

I AM often asked the question, "Under what condi- 
tions do you believe in dry plowing?" The trouble 

in plowing ground dry is over aeration, too much 
air, and not enough water; but when water comes in 
it drives the air out, the clods are easily broken up 
with a little discing ; the ground settles ; becomes 
ready for planting. 

There is nothing which will burn the crops more 
quickly than too much air, and it is a perpetual battle 
with nature for the dry farmer to accumulate enough 
water to drive the air out. 

The agriculturists who come here from the east 
cherish two pet delusions : One is that capillarity will 
save the crop in dry weather by bringing up water 
from the subsoil as it does in the wet states ; the other 
is that the roots of our crops need air. They don't 
know imtil they have run a dry farm that the subsoil 
is nearly always too dry for capillarity to act ; neither 
do they know that our soils in a natural dry state may 
contain bulk for bulk 50% of air, and when dry-plowed 
sometimes 70%, and many of them will say get air 
into the soil, the roots of the plants need oxygen, and 
I believe it was Campbell who said get the right 
amount of air and water into your soil. This sounds 
very wise, but it is quite the reverse, for the relative 
amounts of air and water in the soil change every hour 
of the day, and until we can control the weather we 
cannot regulate the air and water; but we can modify 
the ill effects of the air by not planting until the 
ground is in condition. 

Supposing we plow ground in the fall dry or half 
dry, the winter is dry, the soil is in poor shape in 



ii6 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

the spring, what are we going to do about it? The 
only thing to do is to disc it and harrow it alternately 
until a fairly fine surface is secured and then plant it, 
trusting to nature to do the rest. 

Fall Plowing Usually Best. 

The farmer will most likely say to himself, "I 
wish to goodness I had left this land and plowed it in 
the spring." But he will find that in a dry season if 
he plows in the spring the ground will be just as ill- 
conditioned as it was in the fall, and when he is 
through fining it down he Avill discover that the fall 
plowed land contains a little the most moisture. 
Therefore there is little or nothing gained by waiting, 
provided any kind of a fair job of plowing can be done ; 
for if the snows and rains come, it will mellow down ; 
if they do not, then the spring plowing will be just as 
bad if not worse. 

Early Spring Plowing. 

Supposing it is impossible for some reason or 
other to plow in the fall for spring crops, what is the 
next best thing to do? Disc the land as thoroughly 
as possible and then plow in the spring as soon as 
the frost is out of the ground. 

It is always an advantage to fallow the land be- 
tween crops if only for a month or two. The field 
plowed in the fall for corn to be listed in in the spring 
will usually beat any land for yield which is plowed 
after the winter, and the field plowed in March will, 
in nine cases out of ten, be ahead of the field plowed 
in May. 

In raising a crop on sod the great trouble as usual 
is air. The shallow plowers try to get around this by 
rolling the sod flat and then harrowing the surface. 
This is good as far as it goes, but there is a certain 
objection to it, it doesn't raise crops. When I see a 
field of this kind it always puts me in mind of plant- 
ing crops on a rag carpet. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR DRY FARMERS 117 

Deep Plowing Excludes Air. 

If the sod is plowed deeply, from 8 to 10 inches 
or more, we get a larger proportion of soil to the 
roots, the soil is on top, the grass and roots underneath. 
The sod is pressed down and the surplus air excluded 
by repeated discing and harrowing until the surface 
is fine and well mulched. The disc cuts the sod and 
forces it every way, jamming the little pieces into 
every underground hole and corner until the seed bed 
is fairly solid. While this work is progressing under- 
ground, the surface is becoming finer and more imper- 
vious to air every minute. 

A sod seed bed prepared in this manner often 
raises the banner crop of the same piece of land. Air 
spaces underground are always to be deprecated ; but 
their injurious effects are much reduced by a good 
mulch. 

Air in circulation is ten times as deadly as station- 
ary air, because it carries all the moisture away with 
it. So long as there is plenty of moisture in the soil 
the air movement is up and out, for a cubic inch of 
water makes 1700 cubic inches of steam at 100 centi- 
grade, but even at the temperature of the soil the ex- 
pansion is enormous. 

The atmospheric pressure at sea level is between 
14 and 15 pounds to the inch; in Dakota probably 
about 12, for the higher we go the less atmosphere to 
press down on the earth. High altitudes therefore 
favor evaporation. 

Winter Wheat Following Corn. 
A farmer asks this question: "Is it safe and 
advisable after taking off a corn crop to disc it up and 
plant winter wheat?" 

As a general rule, no ; but at the same time if the 
plowing for the corn has been 10 inches deep, the culti- 
vation kept up, and the season wet, it is quite possible 
a good crop of winter wheat may be obtained. Every 



ii8 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

farmer ought to carry a soil auger to test his land, 
then we could give a definite answer to this question. 
If there are 5 inches of available moisture in the top 
4 feet, over and above the hygroscopic coefficient, and 
the precipitation holds to the average up to time of 
maturity, a good crop of wheat could be raised. 

If the indications are that the corn has used up 
most of the moisture, it would be much better to plow 
the field and winter-fallow it for spring planting. On 
the other hand, if the farmer is bound to plant any- 
thing, it had better be rye, for I have never known a 
season in which fall planted rye did not make a good 
crop of hay, and if the season is very favorable a crop 
of grain even on corn stubble without plowing. 
Planting on Stubble Not Advised. 

I never advise planting on stubble without plow- 
ing because it is a mighty bad habit to get into, and a 
good crop in an exceptional year has been the undoing 
of more than one farmer. 

There is nothing so important in our new agri- 
culture as to keep a level head and try things out as 
we go. We are surrounded on one hand by faddists, 
men who dream dreams, and sit in their offices dry 
farming in their minds, and on the other by a set of 
agriculturists who seem determined to run the dry 
farms by the ancient and holy text books of the east. 

A man came to me once who said he had been 
reading some literature which said all you had to do 
was to plow a few inches and pack the land and all 
the moisture necessary would come up from the sub- 
soil and nourish the crop. So he went to dry farming 
with a packer and a disc. At the end of the season 
by trailing a canvas behind the mower sickle he man- 
aged to gather one load of oat hay off ten acres. 
Discing Before Plowing. 

A correspondent asks: "Which is the best, to 
disc the surface of a field before plowing or to put in 



SUGGESTIONS FOR DRY FARMERS 119 

the same amount of work in cultivating the crop 
later on?" 

It all depends ; when the crop has been taken off, 
and for some reason or other it is not plowed, it 
should at all events be disced to hold the moisture 
until it can be plowed. On the other hand, there is 
no particular object in discing a piece of land today 
and plowing it tomorrow as it would not increase the 
yield to any appreciable extent when the land plows 
in good tilth. 

But supposing the land is dry or half dry? This 
is the time when discing pays, because it creates a few 
inches of loose dirt which when turned under helps 
to fill up the air cavities between the clods. 
Discing Before Breaking. 

Does it pay to disc sod before plowing? Always, 
the only possible exception being when you use a 
Spalding deep tilling machine, but even then it makes 
things easier for the horses ; but when plowing with 
ordinary walking plows it makes a difference of almost 
one horse to the plow if properly and thoroughly done. 
The time to disc sod as a preparation for the plow is 
when the weather is too wet to do anything else. 
Except in the worst kind of adobe, sod seldom sticks 
to the disc no matter how wet it is, and the moister 
the ground the more easily can the disc cut it. Disc- 
ing sod not only helps the horses later on, but when 
turned under helps to fill up the air spaces next to the 
subsoil and makes a more compact seed bed. 

After plowing if the sod is again disced on the 
other side there will be little of it left to bother the 
farmer, not much left to rot. The only disadvantage 
connected with this method is as an old friend of mine 
said : ''When I used to plow the sod and leave it to 
rot I always had lots of time to go fishing, but now 
I have to stay home and cultivate crops." No doubt 
he had less fishing, but his family had more clothes. 



120 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

When a man asks, "Do you think I can succeed 
at dry farming?" I always feel like saying, show me 
what kind of a seed bed you can make out of sod and 
I will tell you. 

Crops Not Made on Seed Bed Alone. 

As an objection to deep plowing it is often urged 
that the top soil may be ruined by plowing up some- 
thing deleterious. How can we tell if this is likely to 
prove the case? The fact is no crop to amount to any 
thing is ever made from the seed bed alone. The roots 
always go into the subsoil unless dry weather or shal- 
low plowing prevents them, and when this happens 
there is no crop. 

The average depth to which the roots of grain 
plants go down is about 3 to 4 feet, so that probably 
one-half or two-thirds of the crop is made from the 
subsoil. Therefore, if any farmer has been raising 
crops on his place the subsoil must be right or he 
couldn't raise them, and it would be perfectly safe to 
go down a few inches farther with the plow. 

The old idea -that a crop was raised in the seed 
bed like a geranium in a pot and that we should pack 
the soil to draw the water up to their roots by capil- 
larity from the subsoil is one of those ideas which we 
can relegate back to the dark ages where it came from. 
When the ground underneath the plow sole is tough 
and refractory as it is apt to be after plowing for years 
at one depth, it can be deep plowed and winter-fal- 
lowed to reduce the lumps ; but if humus is needed to 
keep up the physical condition of the seed bed, it can 
be secured by plowing under a green crop, or by hold- 
ing it for winter wheat planting, after plowing under 
a weed crop in June. 

How Fast Does Water Escape? 

I was asked the other day if I could give any infor- 
mation as to how quickty the water dries out of the 
soil. This, like so many other happenings, depends 



SUGGESTIONS FOR DRY FARMERS 121 

on conditions. An inch of water will go into some sod 
only 2/2 inches and dry out in a little over a week, 
for the top inch of sod will hold about 100% of water 
until it evaporates into the atmosphere and is lost; 
for this reason the unbroken prairie gathers no mois- 
ture When sod land is wet down to about 2 feet, 
which is as deep as the water usually ever goes on 
the prairie, there will sometimes be some left m the 
bottom foot as late as July or August. On cultivated 
fallow land it makes all the difference as to whether 
the soil is clay or sandy loam. When the latter is 
holding 3 feet of moisture to its full holding capacity, 
say 15%, and another storm precipitates one-half an 
inch; in sunny weather and June temperature the top 
inch will dry out in about a week ; by that time the free 
water from the second and third inch will have passed 
upwards and disappeared and all that soaked down- 
wards below the second or third inch will have worked 
down into the subsoil and become film water. ^ ihe 
evaporation can then go on only through the inter- 
stitial or air spaces which is very slow, especially at 
that depth. 

Deep Plowing Conserves Moisture. 
Then if a 3-inch mulch is made by cultivation the 
loss by evaporation through the interstitial spaces will 
be approximately as follows: In the top 6 mches the 
percentage will drop from 2 to 3 points a month as 
long as the weather continues dry. In the subsoil 2 
or 3 feet below the surface under 12-inch plowing the 
percentage dropped in five months dry weather from 
iq to iaVs, while on a neighboring farm under shallow 
plowing it fell from 15% to I2>4%. D^^^ing this 
period no rain appeared which went in more than 

an inch. . 

When it is raining on and off there is always more 
water in the top 2 feet than anywhere else, but after 
a long dry spell conditions are just the reverse, and I 



122 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

have known the seed bed to dry entirely out while the 
dirt in the subsoil would ball in the hand. Thus we 
perceive that the water escapes to some extent even 
through a dry mulch but very slowly indeed by evap- 
oration, as an old farmer friend of mine used to say 
the ground steams. If we take a pane of glass and 
place it on the dry mulch, putting dirt along the edges 
to keep the outside air out and then put a piece of ice 
on it the vapor coming out of the earth through the 
interstitial spaces will condense in big beads on the 
lower side of it. When conditions are right it will do 
the same thing on a board which will be wet on the 
underside after a cold night without any ice. 
Distillation Instead of Capillarity. 

Notwithstanding the fact that those following the 
old agriculture would call this capillarity ; capillarity 
has nothing to do with it, it is the result of distillation 
— condensation, and is caused in the same manner and 
is the same thing as dew. The proof is that water can- 
not pass through dry earth without wetting it even 
by capillary action ; but water as vapor — in the aeri- 
form state — can, and these results may be obtained 
when the surface of the ground is dry and stays dry 
throughout the experiment. 

As explained above, the loss from the subsoil by 
evaporation through the interstitial spaces is very 
slight, but such as it is, it is much greater under shal- 
low plowing than under deep, and the logical conclu- 
sion in this matter can only be that the plowing acts 
as a mulch to the subsoil. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Seed Selection and Corn Breeding 

A QUESTION the dry farmer often has to consider 
is this : Will it pay him to pay extra high prices 
for seed supposed to have been raised for a 
year or two under dry conditions, or for seed of some 
special variety of a hay, grain or forage? 

Evolution teaches that it requires years and years 

for plants and animals to adapt themselves to a new 

environment by undergoing structural changes — 

changes in their make-up of a constitutional character. 

Functional Changes. 

On the other hand functional changes may take 
place in a comparatively short space of time ; it all 
seems to depend on the potentialities hidden in the 
plant, and we know so little of the fixed laws which 
govern these eventualities that it is impossible to pre- 
dict without trying it out, what may happen, or may 
not happen to a plant or tree in a new environment. 
By a functional change we mean a change in its 
method or action, not a change in its structure or 
make-up ; for instance, supposing a plant on being 
moved from a wet climate to a dry one were to develop 
the faculty of turning its leaves edgewise to the sun 
to lessen transpiration of moisture ; this would be a 
functional change. Thus if we raise a certain crop for 
a number of years under dry conditions, it may gain 
something in drouth resistance, or it may gain appre- 
ciably nothing. I say appreciably nothing because it 
is a law of evolution that nothing exists even for a 
small space of time without its environment so to 
speak leaving its mark; but this mark may be so in- 
finitesimal in one or two seasons, as to be practically 
indiscernible ; but the sum of all these marks after a 



124 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

number of years may amount to something in modify- 
ing the nature or structure of the plant to enable it 
to resist the encroachments of its new environment. 
Drouth Resistance Evolved. 

Therefore practically speaking, every year we 
raise a crop on dry land, and save the seed for replant- 
ing, we are forging a link in the chain of drouth resist- 
ance, but whether this link is worth much we do not 
always at once know, whether the chain is a long one 
we cannot tell, but we do know that some impression 
however slight is being made and that eventually 
these impressions as a whole will show results. 

For these reasons we believe that although there 
may be no particular object in paying exhorbitant 
prices for dry raised seed, when good irrigated seed 
can be obtained ; yet it will certainly be much safer 
and pay better in the long run to purchase dry raised 
seed and save it every year if only for the good it will 
do ourselves, and the country at large to forge one or 
two links in our chain of drouth resistance. 
"Run Out" Seed. 

We often hear farmers say, "Oh that seed has run 
out in our neighborhood ; it is no good any more." 

Now what is the trouble? There are usually two 
good reasons for this. One is want of proper selec- 
tion ; the other, the necessity for crop rotation ; the 
land becomes crop sick ; the grain deteriorates. 

The longer any crop is grown in a given locality 
the more it becomes adapted to its environment, and 
the better it does, provided we give it a fair chance 
with regard to the above two factors — selection and 
rotation. 

Why is selection such a potent force in seed rais- 
ing? Because everything we raise was originally de- 
rived from a wild prototype, and the tendency under 
the slightest adverse condition is to revert. There- 
fore in order to maintain a high standard of excellence, 



SEED SELECTION; CORN BREEDING 125 

we must provide not only the very best conditions of 
seed bed and culture ; but must select the very finest of 
the stock for purposes of perpetuation or breeding. 
Dry Farming Old. 

Dry farming, although they perhaps do not call 
it that, has been carried on for hundreds of years by 
the natives of the dry districts of Asia, Europe and 
Africa, and these are the places to look for drouth re- 
sisting grains, grasses and legumes, for the essence 
of adaptation is time, and for that reason we are much 
more likely to import a drouth resisting type than to 
evolve one. 

Our macaroni wheats, the Turkey Red, the Mexi- 
can Peanut, the White Australian corn and other types 
were acquired in this manner. 

As far as breeding is concerned I have dabbled 
in crossing grains, fruits and flowers, but my principal 
experience for over 25 years has been with corn ; but 
before going into details in these matters, it is well 
to begin at the beginning and gain some insight into 
the laws of nature which govern them. 
How Plants are Fertilized. 

The perpetuation of species in plant life depends 
on sex, the commingling of the male and female ele- 
m.ent, just as it does in the animal kingdom. The 
majority of flowers and the blossoms of fruit trees are 
bi-sexular; that is to say, both sexes are represented 
in one blossom. In the center of the blossom we find 
the pistil ; at the top end of the pistil like a little flat 
disc is the stigma ; all around the stigma are the pollen 
bearing anthers ; the pollen drops from the anthers 
onto the stigma; this fertilizing element from the 
stigma is carried down the pistil by the sap into the 
seed pod where the stem joins the blossom and lo the 
pod begins to develop into a cherry or plum or apple 
as the case may be. Some blossoms, however, like 
those of the pumpkin are not bi-sexual but either male 



126 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

or female, and for fertilization purposes the pollen 
must be carried by insects or wind or some other 
agent from the male to the female blossom. 
Sexes Individual. 

In some trees and plants we find the sexes indi- 
vidually apart, or as it is called dioecious ; a male tree 
which provides male blossoms but no fruit ; a female 
tree which has female blossoms but fruits only when 
there is a male tree in the neighborhood to supply the 
pollen brought to her blossoms by the insect carriers 
or the wind. 

Corn is fertilized by the pollen from the tassel fall- 
ing on the silks, for there is a silk for every grain of 
corn, and if the pollen does not fall on any particular 
silk, the result will be a corresponding blank on the 
cob. Corn is therefore largely self fertilized or inbred, 
a characteristic which we will touch upon later. 

Besides the laws of sex the other most important 
ones involved in plant breeding are the unit quality or 
characteristic law, the Mendel law of reversions, and 
the law of variation, mutants or sports. 

Burbank and De Vries both agree that in crossing 
two different varieties or types, the qualities or char- 
acteristics of either parent when transmitted to off- 
spring are not, as a rule, merged or blended, but are 
passed on as a whole or unit. 

Thus if we cross yellow corn with white we do 
not obtain a cream colored corn ; but ears containing 
some yellow and some white grains all on the same 
cob. The same with earliness or lateness, for when 
we breed an early corn with a late one, the first result 
is that the corn is not medium, but each plant is either 
early or late according to the parent which it takes 
after. 

Mendel's Law. 

The Mendel law which was in fact a law of rever- 
sions, not entirely understood before he elucidated it 



SEED SELECTION; CORN BREEDING 127 

but yet practiced by animal breeders to some extent, 
gives us the exact ratio in which reversions take place 
under a condition of inbreeding. This law says : If 
two varieties are crossed and the first generation al- 
lowed to inbreed the resulting progeny will throw 
back to the original type ; three of the dominant type 
to one of the other. Supposing, for instance, we cross 
the White Australian with a common white corn of 
weak potency ; then the White Australian will be the 
dominant type of the two. We take the seed from this 
cross and plant it and raise the plants in such a man- 
ner that they must inbreed from the pollen on their 
own tassels, then save the seed and plant it the follow- 
ing season ; the result will be three plants of White 
Australian to every one of the other. 

The inbreeding has caused the mixed or crossed 
corn to revert to the original types in a ratio of three 
of the dominant type to one of the other. The moral 
of this is that if we wish to establish a new type by 
crossing, we must allow no inbreeding until seven or 
eight generations have passed and the new variety 
breeds true. Many a man has paid hundreds of dol- 
lars for an ear of corn only to allow it to inbreed and 
revert; whereas if he had purchased at the corn show 
one ear of the same variety from each of two different 
farmers and bred them together, the odds are that he 
would have produced a finer corn than either one. 
Many corn breeders understand this and do not mind 
parting with their best ears for they know nothing 
will come of it. 

Law of Variations. 

The law of variations or sports or as much as a 
farmer needs to know about it is simply this : The rule 
that pure-bred stock should breed true has its excep- 
tions, and while it is true that these exceptions which 
we call variations, mutants or sports, are somewhat 
rare it is nevertheless a fact that they occur, and are 



128 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

of the greatest value to breeders in obtaining new 
types. 

Cross breeding seems to have the effect of stimu- 
lating all the latent potentialities and dormant possi- 
bilities in the creation of these sports, and in a field 
of cross bred corn we may discover at any time valu- 
able ears which seem to bear little relation to either 
parent, and in points of excellence may transcend any- 
thing in the field ; but this is the point to fix in our 
mind : It is possible that from these we may derive 
an entirely new and valuable type. 

Nearly all of Burbank's new and wonderful crea- 
tions have been obtained in this way, not by the old 
method of selection alone, but by cross breeding, and 
the selection of promising sports. In breeding from 
sports we must not forget the law of reversions al- 
ready explained ; we may find a magnificent ear of corn 
and lose the value of it entirely by allowing it to in- 
breed and revert. To prevent this we must breed it 
with the next best ear we can find in the patch, and 
do the same for five or six years at least until the type 
becomes more or less fixed, the idea being to prevent 
the corn from becoming fertilized from the pollen off 
its own tassels. 

Preventing In-Breeding With Corn. 

How is this done? By planting the two side by 
side and detasseling the most valuable ; this makes 
the corn from the best ear the female parent, and the 
next best ear which provides the pollen the male 
parent. Whole rows may be planted side by side and 
one of them detasseled, in fact all corn for seed should 
be beheaded in this manner whether for breeding pur- 
poses or not, for the reason that cross poUenization 
produces stronger and more vigorous seed in anything 
and everything than self-fertilization. When the tassel 
is cut off a hill of corn we are absolutely sure that the 
silks must then be fertilized from the tassels of a 




cc 
« 

18 

i_ 
V 

> 
< 



Q. 
CC 
iJ 
o 

E 

i- 
n 
h. 

>» 

Q 



SEED SELECTION; CORN BREEDING 129 

neighboring hill or not at all ; but as a matter of fact 
they always seem to catch the necessary pollen and if 
only the one variety with which we wish to make the 
cross is planted immediately adjoining, the results are 
certain. Some breeders will declare that inbreeding 
instead of causing reversions helps to fix the type. 
The truth is, in pure-bred, blooded stock, inbreeding 
does do this, but in cross-bred stock it causes reversions 
by throwing back to the dominant type. The first 
year when making the cross we plant the two varieties 
side by side one row of each and then detassel one 
row. If one variety is 90-day corn and the other 100- 
day corn, then the latter must be planted 10 days 
ahead to insure their both arriving at maturity at the 
same time. 

Seed From Detasseled Rows. 

The second year we collect the ears from the de- 
tasseled row and in order to prevent inbreeding we 
take only one grain from each cob and again plant two 
rows, detasseling one row ; either will do. 

The third year any of the grain can be planted 
from the best ears; but the rows intended for seed 
should always be detasseled, at any rate for six years. 

The yield is kept up by selecting the most vigor- 
ous and by detasseling the seed row; it can often be 
still further increased by making a fresh cross ; it will 
then be a compound cross. 

A cross or a compound cross is not a hybrid ; if 
we could cross corn and wheat it would be a hybrid ; 
but hybrids, like the mule for instance, do not perpet- 
uate their species except in very rare cases. 

In these things and many other characteristics, 
the vegetable kingdom and the animal kingdom are 
analogous. 

Unit Quality Law Valuable. 

The unit quality law is of great value to breeders 
inasmuch as it allows them to impart to one variety 



130 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

any particular characteristic of another. Supposing, 
for instance, we have three different varieties of corn ; 
one possessing the earliness we desire, one has an extra 
fine color, another has extreme hardiness and vigor, 
and we wish to combine these characteristics in one 
variety; how do we set about it? 

We cross the first two and obtain a new strain, 
then cross this with the third variety which results in 
a compound cross, then we plant as large a number 
as possible of the latter, selecting and propagating any 
of these which combine in the highest degree the three 
characteristics we demand. 

We may find only one or two out of thousands 
that fulfill these requirements, but they can always 
be obtained by persistent efforts. 

If it were not for this unit quality law, earliness 
would merge with lateness, color with color, vigor 
with weakness, and so on resulting in a negative mix- 
ture neither one thing nor the other. Burbank con- 
siders this law one of the most important in the 
creation of new varieties. 

Farmers Should Watch for "Sports." 

All farmers should be alive to the value of sports 
or variants ; it is from these that the great plant breed- 
ers have derived so many new and wonderful varieties. 
Anything promising in this line should be separated 
from the common herd and bred with as little inbreed- 
ing as possible until the type breeds true. 

Flowers and fruits are crossed by bringing the 
pollen from one blossom to the other, and then propa- 
gating from the seed, selection always going hand in 
hand with crossing. In order to cross small grain the 
flowers have to be emasculated ; the male and female 
organs are so close together that self-fertilization will 
take place unless the male element or pollen is re- 
moved, when the pollen from the plant desired for the 
cross can then be introduced. The accidental intru- 



SEED SELECTION; CORN BREEDING 131 

sion of foreign pollen not desired may be prevented 
by tying blossoms in cheese cloth. 

Suggestions for Corn Breeding. 

In breeding new varieties of corn, I believe it best 
in the west to select chiefly for earliness and quantity, 
for after we have achieved these results, will be time 
enough to take up breeding for beauty and fancy points. 

The idea of not too large a cob is all very well, 
but to breed it almost entirely out would be a distinct 
disadvantage, for it fulfills a very useful purpose by 
holding sufficient moisture to mature the grains in 
the shock after the growing season is practically over. 

Big ears, as every farmer knows, do not always 
mean big yields, and the man who takes the prizes at 
the fair may be raising only ten bushels to the acre. 

The same thing may be done with wheat by 
screening all the big kernels out of a large acreage 
of poor grain. If we wish to stimulate the introduc- 
tion of better methods, we should give prizes for yield, 
not for specimens. 

Planting on Dry Farm. 

In the corn contests the greatest yields have been 
obtained (over 200 bushels) by deep plowing. Every 
inch counts, and in dry farming it is better never to 
plant more than one in a hill. The distance apart 
should be largely determined by the depth of plowing, 
2 feet being none too much with a 7-inch seed bed, but 
with lo-inch plowing, 18 inches will suffice, and with 
15- to 20-inch plowing an enormous yield was raised 
by planting i foot apart. When corn commences to 
run out, new blood is necessary, almost any kind of a 
cross will produce larger ears and increase the yield, 
but if a mongrel type is not desired, the same old 
variety can be introduced from a neighboring farm 
and allowed to mix naturally by planting together. 

In testing ears for seed we must always remember 
that one side of the ear may be good while the other 



132 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

side which has been leaning against the shock may 
have been damaged by mildew, therefore one grain 
from each ear is hardly sufficient unless we are very 
careful to pick only the brightest and cleanest. Seed 
corn should not be exposed to below zero weather; 
the trouble is the germ can absorb from the atmos- 
phere as high as 20% of water and the expansion from 
freezing is liable to rupture the cells and destroy its 
germinating power even when the corn seems to the 
farmer to be perfectly dry. 



CHAPTER XV 

Listing Corn on the Dry Farm 

CORN is one of our standard dry farm crops. 
Everyone raises corn or fodder, and some con- 
sider it a safer crop than sorghum, and it is 
some years; but since it is impossible to forecast the 
weather the farmer seldom knows which will make 
the best and most feed until he has it harvested. 

In hot dry years the cane usually does the best; 
but when the season is cool and backward and not 
so dry, the corn fodder may come out ahead. 

It is not good policy to try to raise corn and fodder 
as one and the same crop. To mature grain the plants 
must have plenty of room, and the ears should be left 
on until the leaves are brown. To raise good fodder it 
should be planted thickly and cut at the first sign of 
browning up. 

It was ascertained some years ago by experiment 
that the farther apart each grain was planted in the 
hill, for it was all hills in those days, the better the 
yield ; this, of course, eventually led to row planting, 
and the old two-way check row system was abandoned 
by the progressive growers. 

The Corn Lister. 

Then the lister came to the front, which will drop 
the grains any distance apart the farmer may desire in 
the bottom of a furrow, which it makes as it goes. 

This implement was hailed with delight by the 
surface farmers and those who hated to plow. "Here,'' 
they said, "we have a machine that plows and plants 
at one and the same time, we can run over ten acres 
a day." So they did, and so many of them are doing 
yet — planting corn in the hard ground, raising ten 
bushels to the acre and telling everybody their state 



134 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

was never intended to raise corn in and never would 
amount to anything for that purpose. The lister, how- 
ever, properly used is the best implement known to 
man for raising corn on the dry farm where depth is 
the prime factor, for it plows a furrow, and then plants 
the corn in the bottom of it. By this method the roots 
of the corn are established at considerable depth close 
to the subsoil, and down they go right into the 
moisture, thus evading all danger of stunting by 
drouth. 

Another point, as soon as the corn shows up well 
above the top of the furrow we take the cultivator and 
running close to the corn, fill it up, thus completely 
burying all the weeds in the corn row, and saving a 
whole lot of hoeing. 

When the furrows are filled up and the field 
leveled by the cultivator the corn is set in the ground 
5 or 6 inches deeper than by any other method now in 
use. It has the advantage not only of being closer to 
the moisture, but of possessing more strength and 
stability to withstand flood, and wind, and a 3 or 4 or 
even 5-inch mulch can be put on at almost any time 
with the cultivator without danger of injury to the 
roots. 

Root Pruning in Surface Planting. 

There is this to remember about corn : If you plant 
it shallow and allow the roots to occupy the surface, 
and then cultivate deep, you are very liable to ruin 
the chances of a crop ; but if on the other hand you give 
it a good deep root system by listing, cultivate deep 
and keep it up until the last minute, it will not 
hurt the corn a particle, but by cutting off the incipi- 
ent surface roots will cause it to go down deeper and 
deeper. 

If the corn, however, has been laid by, and you 
should determine late in the season to cultivate in rye, 
for instance, the rows between to be turned under the 



LISTING CORN ON THE DRY FARM 135 

next spring for fertilizer, it would be better to cut 
shallower with the cultivator, for when corn is not 
tilled it will always send out a mass of surface roots 
and it would do more harm than good to destroy them 
near maturing time when they are helping to make 
the corn by catching moisture from light showers 
which never wet the subsoil. 

Lister Not to Substitute Plow. 

The lister is not a plow, and was never made to 
do a plow's work, it is simply a variety of corn planter 
and should be used as such. 

To raise payable crops of corn, something that will 
pay for the labor expended and something over, it is 
necessary to plow from 10 to 12 inches deep and list 
the seed in across the plowing. It matters little, then, 
how dry the weather is so long as moisture has been 
conserved in the subsoil. It often takes three months 
continuous drouth to dry out the top 6 inches ; at plant- 
ing time the corn when listed is already in this deep, 
and three weeks later the roots will be down another 
foot, at least 18 inches in all, and by the end of the 
season, if we take the trouble to exhume some of these, 
we wall find some probably 6 to 8 feet long. 
Spring or Fall Plowing. 

Here comes a question : Should the plowing be 
done in the spring or the fall? 

It depends on the soil. Corn is not like oats and 
wheat, it has a "rooted" objection to hard land. Some 
soils settle and show much more sinkage at the end 
of the winter than others, and these hard soils 
often show better results when plowed early in the 
spring. Light soft loams, however, are better plowed 
in the fall. 

It is a mistake to plow land at the last minute and 
plant behind the harrow. Corn land which is not 
plowed in the fall should be plowed as soon as the frost 
is out of the ground in the spring, and the first weed 



136 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

crop can be disced out before planting, which gives 
us a cleaner field. 

The next best thing for putting in corn, when the 
lister is not used, is the split wheel planter, the vacant 
space in the center of the wheel leaving an unpacked 
streak for the shoots to come through. When the 
spring is cool and backward it is better not to plant 
corn more than 2 inches deep. I have known it, how- 
ever, to come through 8 inches of soil when the 
weather was warm. 

If the land is plowed in the fall or early in the 
spring it needs no packing except in the seed row, and 
not very much in that. 

Distance Apart in Planting. 

How far apart should the grains be dropped? 

The idea is to space the kernels one by one in the 
seed row according to the fertility of the soil, the depth 
of plowing and the outlook for moisture. 

When the moisture conditions are right an enor- 
mous crop may be made by plowing 20 inches deep, 
and planting a foot apart in the row; with 10 and 12- 
inch plowing, 18 inches apart; with 8 to 9-inch plow- 
ing, 2 feet apart. When the soil is poor the seed may 
be planted one in a hill 36 inches apart by check row- 
ing and cultivating both ways. 

There is no harm in fertilizing corn in the row if 
the owner so desires, and in some soils this will pay 
for the fertilizer many times over. Finely ground 
phosphate rock or bone meal with some nitrate is used 
for this purpose, and so little is applied that there is 
no permanent efifect noticeable on the soil. 

We have to be careful with nitrate in large quan- 
tities in some soils, but ground phosphate rock which 
is chiefly lime, if pure, is invaluable to any soil which 
does not contain it in moderate quantities, and this is 
probably the first element that our western farm soils 
will become deficient in. 



LISTING CORN ON THE DRY FARM 137 

Importance of Strong Seed. 

In planting corn by the single kernel method with 
the lister or planter there is one point we have to be 
very careful about, and that is to test the seed for 
vigor so that every grain germinates. If the seed is 
poor and purchased in bulk instead of in the ear^ the 
only way around this problem is to drop two grains 
instead of one, and when they come up cut out the 
extra ones. The thinning by hand might cost 50 cents 
an acre or more in labor, but it would be worth it to 
obtain a good stand. 

The average yield of corn in the west is some- 
thing like 13 bushels per acre. By the methods out- 
lined in this article this may be increased to 40 or 50 
bushels. This is no fairy tale but fact, and the writer 
would be pleased to refer any skeptical reader to those 
who have done it. Forty bushels per acre is no extra- 
ordinary yield even at 6,000 feet altitude, and in this 
connection I would say, stick to corn, don't be afraid 
of it, for history of this grain shows that it can be 
adapted to almost any climate from the arctic circle to 
the equator. 

To obtain the best seed corn, detassel four or five 
rows in the very best part of the field, leaving the tas- 
sels on the alternate rows. 

Variation in Kernels. 

No two grains on any single ear ever produce 
exactly alike, each grain is a distinct and separate 
entity ; for instance, supposing the farmer is raising a 
white corn, and when saving the seed he notices some- 
yellow grains mixed in with the white, which some- 
times happens when the wind brings pollen from an- 
other field ; all he will have to do to keep the strain 
pure will be, not to discard the whole ear, but simply 
to cut out the yellow grains. 

The principal reasons for poor germination are 
harvesting before the seed is matured, becoming moldy 



138 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

in the shock, and exposure to excessively low temper- 
ature in winter. 

The only objection ever urged against listing is 
that where the ground is not level an early cloudburst 
which is very unusual, except adjacent to the moun- 
tains, may sometimes flood the furrows and smother 
the young corn just as it is coming through; but this 
is a contingency so remote as to be almost entirely 
ignored by the majority of the corn raisers. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Winter Wheat on the Dry Farm 

THE dry farmer who understands his business 
never raises spring wheat where winter wheat 
flourishes. The average for the United States 
for 191 1 is for winter wheat 14 bushels per acre; for 
spring wheat 9. 

The reasons for this are patent to everybody. 
Winter wheat has plenty of time to root deeply, which 
it does more than spring wheat ; the field in which it 
grows has all winter to catch snow and accumulate 
moisture ; when the growing season commences it is 
already established, and can make its growth in the 
cool weather of late spring, and early summer, before 
spring wheat has hardly started. 

Summer-Fallow. 

Does it pay to fallow? I believe it does. I can 
point to several gentlemen of my acquaintance who 
raise their 40 and 45 bushels per acre by deep plowing 
and fallowing. 

Besides these, there are several large communities 
of farmers who do nothing else, and make it pay. I 
know of men in the San Joaquin Valley of California 
who started in with little or nothing, twenty or thirty 
years ago, and are now worth over $100,000 or more. 
The product of this valley runs into the millions and the 
precipitation is only about 12 inches, sometimes 6 or 8; 
but the summer-fallowing which has been used in Cali- 
fornia for 50 years and more, equalizes the moisture, 
and allows the farmer to carry over a goodly percent- 
age when the year happens to be a wet one. This 
method is considered such a sure crop producer that 
wheat lands without the possibility of any irrigation 
whatever are selling from $100 to $200 an acre. 



140 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

This shows the true value of dry farm land with a 
sparse precipitation when properly farmed, which 
years ago was considered desert, and could be bought 
for 25 cents an acre. 

There is also a summer-fallow wheat belt where, 
if I remember rightly, they told me their product was 
over a million dollars annually, and that is in the Blue 
Mountain district of eastern Oregon ; the farmers there 
are also doing well and building up the country. There 
are others in eastern Washington and parts of 
Montana. 

It pays much better to raise a crop every other 
year on the same piece of land which will run to 40 or 
45 bushels than to raise one every year with double 
the work of 15 or 20 bushels. The reader may think 
my figures are too high, but if he will plow a good 10 
inches, and summer-fallow, he will find out something 
about good plowing and yields. 

Deep vs. Shallow Plowing. 

The International Institute of Agriculture reports 
the averages for Belgium, England and Germany as 38, 
33 and 30 bushels respectively. In the United States, 
the Department of Agriculture says, 14. What is the 
answer? 

These countries plow from 10 to 20 inches. Our 
average all over America is 6 inches ! Someone might 
say that the factor of fertilization intervenes ; it does 
in this way: Our land is new and virgin soil hardly 
needing anything in that line yet — theirs, some of it, 
has been farmed for a thousand years. 

Out of 38 bushels raised in Europe, about 8 would 
go for fertilizer, leaving a clear 16 bushels over and 
above our average yield. 

Some of our college men are disposed to discour- 
age wheat raising by our dry farmers, and they are 
right in a way, for if they approve 5 and 6-inch plow- 
ing, and this summer-tilling, as some call it — making 



WINTER WHEAT ON THE DRY FARM 141 

a dust mulch with a harrow — there is little or nothing 
in it but a hand-to-mouth living; but that is not the 
way to raise wheat. 

Value of Disc in Dry Farming. 

The best method of preparing the fallow is to plow 
10 or 12 inches, and disc and cross-disc without 
lapping. 

Every farmer knows that the disc leaves two dis- 
tinct ridges at its outside edges, as it moves along; 
now when we cross disc, we have the cross ridges 
which divide the whole field into checks, or squares, 
which will hold water. This is the easiest way there 
is to catch a cloudburst or quick rain ; for these squares 
will hold an inch of water if it comes in 20 minutes. 

In experiments made by Professor Farrel, an inch 
of rain went into summer tilled land less than 2 inches. 
In land prepared with the disc, it will go in 5 or 6. 

To scratch winter wheat, late in the season, into 
corn stubble land, is also another favorite method of 
gambling with nature; but failure by methods which 
court failure is no argument whatever against raising 
this crop by profitable methods. In fields which are 
planted to wheat without rotation, fertility is as great 
a problem as moisture. 

Nitrogen Need Not Decrease. 

Some years ago, the magazines almost started a 
panic among the consumers by printing scare articles 
about using up all the nitrogen in the soil, and figured 
out how long it would take for us all to starve to 
death for want of wheaten bread. These articles, al- 
though written in some cases by eminent professors, 
were great nonsense. It has been found by 70 years 
of experimenting at Rothamsted, England, that when 
land is fallowed, its nitrogen content increases steadily. 
Besides fallowing, it may also easily be acquired by 
plowing under green crops, and for these reasons nitro- 
gen will not be the first element of fertility to be 



142 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

missed from our soils. From present indications, phos- 
phoric acid will be the one, and when the demand be- 
comes insistent enough to guarantee a reasonable 
profit, the phosphate rock will be supplied from our 
own mountains right at hand, which contain any quan- 
tity of it. 

In California, the practice of heading the wheat is 
much to be commended ; this leaves all the straw and 
stubble on the ground to be plowed under or pastured 
to stock, for whether it is plowed under as straw or 
manure, it remains in the field, and is converted into 
humus. 

Treatment of Land Following Removal of Crop. 

A question, however, with those who bind their 
wheat and leave a 3 or 4-inch stubble is this: Should 
the ground be disced behind the binder, should it be 
plowed, or should it be left as it is? 

In answering these questions we would prefer to 
have a reliable forecast of the weather ; in place of 
this we can only bank on what it should be in order 
to conform, to the general average conditions of the 
district in question. For instance, if the winter should 
prove warm and dry, a good discing would save much 
moisture ; but should it prove windy and snowy, the 
stubble by catching the drift will accumulate more 
moisture than the discing could conserve. It should 
also be noted that by carrying the field through the 
winter in the stubble, the labor of one discing is saved ; 
then if the straw is needed for feed it can be pastured 
towards spring. 

The cattle, of course, eat oflf the stubble, but return 
it all to the field in the shape of manure, and the tramp- 
ling and the dust plug up the cracks and prevent loss 
of moisture almost as much as a mulch ; but as soon 
as they are ofif, the disc should be run over the field to 
cut up the surface, bury the manure, and plant the 
weed seeds left in the stubble. Then when the weeds 



WINTER WHEAT ON THE DRY FARM 143 

are up 8 or 9 inches high, is a good time to prepare the 
summer-fallow by plowing everything under 10 or 12 
inches deep in May or June. The fertilizing effect of 
the weeds in producing humus when plowed under will 
more than offset that lost in discing the summer-fallow. 

In raising winter wheat, the yield depends on the 
depth of plowing, and as to whether the land was 
fallowed or not. 

Pays to Plow Deep. 

Some say, of course, that it does not pay to plow 
deep, but if these gentlemen were to plow a few acres 
10 to 12 inches deep, they would soon understand that 
by plowing shallow they are robbing themselves of 
something like 10 or 15 dollars per acre. 

Here is a case in point. Five or six years ago an 
engine came through a neighborhood with which I am 
familiar. One man hired the owner to plow him up 
20 acres 5 to 6 inches deep at $2.50 per acre ; another 
hired the same outfit to plow 30 acres 9 to 10 inches 
deep at $4.50 an acre. 

Both plowed in the spring and planted in Septem- 
ber; both cultivated about enough in the interim to 
keep the weeds out. The field plowed 10 inches deep 
yielded 38 bushels to the acre ; the one plowed 6 inches 
went 23. The extra cost of the deep plowing was $2 an 
acre, the extra yield 15 bushels worth 90 cents a bushel, 
which equals $13.50; deducting the $2 an acre for the 
extra depth plowed, this man made $11.50 an acre clear 
profit over and above what the shallow plower made, 
without doing a thing except to give his instructions 
to the engine man. 

Did it pay or did it not? 

Wheat On Sod. 

Now about raising wheat on sod? On thin land, 
it is often the best crop for the first few years. 

Anything can be raised on sod ; it is simply the 
same old axiom — more work, more returns. Do we 



144 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

want to put in $5 worth of work and take off $7; or 
would we rather put in $10 worth and take off $20 
or $25? 

Everyone knows the first of these methods — the 
sod is plowed 2 or 3 inches, rolled flat and a slanted 
harrow run over it ; the yield — well, the less said about 
that the better. 

The other method is to turn under the sod from 8 
to 10 inches deep, thus saving all the humus, and disc 
and harrow alternately until the surface is fine enough 
to cultivate. 

Lots of work ! Yes, certainly, but the yield ! It 
may cost 14 bushels per acre in money to do this ; but 
the returns will be from 25 to 40, according to the 
season, and there will be no sod to bother next year 
as there always is when it is left on the surface to 
dry out. 

Variety to Sow. 

What kind of wheat would you plant? Sometimes 
we find a locally raised grain that is immensely popular 
with the farmers and does well, but the wheat 
most universally raised and the one to be found at 
nearly all the exhibits from Canada to Colorado is 
Turkey Red. 

The great value of this wheat consists in the fact 
that it is almost as hardy as winter rye ; the grain is 
elongated, and not so thick as some varieties ; but 
weighs up well and produces an enormous number of 
heads to the plant. It could easily be crossed with 
some variety of plump Russian spring wheat by plant- 
ing the latter early in the season under glass, and if 
the weight of the grains could be increased only 10%, 
it would create quite a difference in the yield. The 
result of the cross would naturally be some winter 
wheat, and some spring wheat, but the latter could 
easily be eliminated by planting in the fall, the survivor 
being the winter wheat. 



WINTER WHEAT ON THE DRY FARM 145 

Farmers often complain that when they use their 
own seed for a number of years, the variety deterior- 
ates — "runs out." 

There is a tendency always to revert back to the 
wild prototype. The types of today have been created 
by applying knowledge and effort to discover the laws 
of evolution, and use them for our own benefit; in 
this case, the principle involved is selection, and as 
soon as we neglect it, reversion commences. 

In applying selection to wheat, it is not only nec- 
essary to choose large grains, but large heads also. 
There are not many farmers who are willing to go to 
all this trouble, although it would undoubtedly pay in 
the long run. The large kernels for seed may be 
selected out very easily by screening and this alone 
would be a great help in keeping the crop up to 
standard. 



CHAPTER XVII 

35 Years With Dry Farm Alfalfa 

MY first experience with alfalfa was in the British 
Colony of Natal, South Africa, in 1877. After 
coming- to Colorado I have raised it continu- 
ously since 1886 — in fact I would not dry farm with- 
out it. 

Corn fodder has its uses, but in a hard winter with 
three or four stacks of alfalfa at his back, the small 
farmer has little to fear; it doesn't blow away and the 
cattle eat it clean. 

In Natal when I was there the weather was dry ; 
they claimed from 20 to 25 inches, but all I could find 
after summing up for the season was about 15 inches. 

Owing to horse sickness, which is a disease more 
or less sporadic all the time, and supposed to arise 
from inoculation by a certain kind of fly, everybody 
used oxen for farm work, some plowing with two, some 
with four and, of course, the plowing was poor. 

There was only one man in the neighborhood who 
had any alfalfa, and he had only a few rows of it which 
he obtained by sowing in a seed bed and then plant- 
ing out. 

This piece of lucern, as they call it there, supported 
a riding horse and two cows, cutting and feeding it 
green. When one end of the patch was reached the 
other was up high and ready to cut again. It looked 
like a mighty good thing, and began to be the talk of 
the neighborhood ; but nobody could obtain a stand 
of it. 

Shallow Plowing Cause of Failure. 

The trouble was evidently shallow plowing, so 
securing the co-operation of one of the neighbors we 
doubled up ox teams, and plowed a few acres 9 to 10 



35 YEARS WITH DRY FARM ALFALFA 147 

inches deep. We secured a good stand and it went 
one-half a ton to the acre the first year ; everybody is 
raising it now. 

When I started in on my dry ranch in Colorado I 
knew just about what to do, and plowed accordingly, 
some days not plowing more than half or a quarter of 
an acre, especially when the adobe underneath was 
tough; but then, what was the difference? I might 
not have to plow again for twenty years. 

As a general rule the alfalfa grew the best on 
ground plowed in the fall, harrowed and disced in the 
spring before planting. 

Much of my alfalfa was broadcasted by hand and 
harrowed in. This may seem rather a primitive 
method in the days of seeders and press drills, but I 
found that by doing this I was never bothered with a 
crust; the alfalfa always came through — another thing; 
when you sow by hand and harrow in, some seed goes 
in 3 inches, some 2, some i, which gives you three 
chances to make a stand, whichever way the rains 
come. 

For instance, in very wet weather that which is 
down 3 inches and part of that down 2 inches may 
never come through, but the other half of the seed at 
or near the surface will all grow, and establish a good 
stand provided as much as 15 pounds to the acre are 
planted, for 73/< pounds, if it all grows, is plenty to 
cover the field. Again, if a fairly good rain comes fol- 
lowed by a dry spell, then the seed at or near the sur- 
face is liable to sprout and dry out ; but that at 2 or 3 
inches under the ground will stay and make a stand. 
The Packing Craze. 

I am convinced that alfalfa land should never be 
packed all over after the seed is sown, and very lightly 
if at all in the seed row. Packing is a craze with some 
people, just as summer tilling is with others; but if 
they would deduct just three-quarters of the packing 



148 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

and half of the summer tilling and add all this onto the 
plowing the results would astonish them. 

The best kind of packing is a few months fallow- 
ing after plowing, and it costs nothing! 

I always planted my alfalfa in the spring for al- 
though many claim that late planting is the best, a 
careful canvas of the situation will disclose that this 
statement is not borne out by facts. The danger of 
planting too early is frost, of planting too late, drouth 
— a storm may come, wet down to the seed which will 
sprout and dry out before it can take hold. 

Hence, common sense says, plant it in the wettest 
season of the year, which is often at the end of April 
or beginning of May. 

I have known alfalfa in the seed leaf to stand io° 
below freezing with 2 inches of snow on the ground, 
but 2 to 4" of dry frost are sometimes fatal when the 
sun rises clear. 

We must always remember that altitude causes 
susceptibility to injury by freezing on account of lack 
of air pressure to counteract the expansive action of 
frozen sap, which bursts the cells and thus breaks 
down the structure, or as the farmer says, cooks it, and 
the farmer is right, for cooking is almost the same 
process, the breaking down of the cell structure by the 
expansion of heat or steam, and a burn on a man is 
very much the same thing as a frost bite ; but let us 
return to our subject. 

Bromus With Alfalfa. 
Amongst some alfalfa that I planted years ago, 
came up some bromus inermus ; as the gophers worked 
in the soil and thinned out the stand the bromus spread 
and filled up the vacant spaces. Thinking this was a 
pretty good arrangement, the next time I planted 
lucern I put in some bromus with it. It did not show 
up the first year and very little of it could be seen in 
the alfalfa the second year; but as the gophers com- 



35 YEARS WITH DRY FARM ALFALFA 149 

menced work, it again began to pre-empt the vacant 
places, and this particular patch is now nearly all 

''^^TuhtghttL'dr^arm where the precipitation 

is lefs than'18 inches I -«'<i.rr/ Ifa" t7l"believ; 
sideration plant a nurse crop with alfalfa, yet I beheve 
it perfectly safe to sow it with bromus. This grass is 
Ifin any sense of the word a nurse crop, in fact, the 
alfalfals the nurse crop to the bromus, for it seldom 
It: ;; much the firs't r-, and if anything suffers 
for lack of moisture it is not the alfalfa. I "ave fen 
oats planted with alfalfa hundreds of times, but it al- 
ways ended the same way, a crop of oats but no a aHa 
the same when wheat or rye were used. Under dry 
arm conditions it seems futile to attempt to raise two 
crops where there is hardly enough moisture for one. 
Weeds in Alfalfa. 
What about weeds? Well, weeds are another 
drawback ; but it is easier to raise alfalfa and weeds on 
one oatch than to raise alfalfa, oats, and weeds. It is a 
eood dea to mow the young alfalfa about July or 
Au^ist weeds and all, sometimes this cutting is worth 
fakhi'b" usually not, and can be left on the ground 
to dry up. If alfalfa can be held until high enough 
n cut it is safe from drouth, the tops may dry but it 
will bud again from the root as soon as the rains 

appear. . 

Deep Plowing in Algiers. 
The French delegate at one of the Dry Farming 
Congresses told me that they had great trouble in 
SrsTn obtaining a stand ; but eventually they made 
oufby plowing 20 inches deep. This is the mam thing 
!! he whole s'ecret of obtaining a stand-.f you can 
plow deeply it is just as easy as rolling off a log. After 
the alfalfa is established nothing seems to hurt it ex 
cept gophers. Those who irrigate, of course, are trou- 
bled to some extent with the rot and w.nter-kilhng. 



150 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

for anything sappy will winter-kill, and this applies 
also to dry farm alfalfa on bottoms where the roots go 
to water. My alfalfa on the hillsides has always win- 
tered perfectly in the driest years, but was sometimes 
very late in coming out in the spring for want of 
moisture. 

These observations of mine it must be noted were 
made in Colorado and it is quite possible they may 
not apply everywhere ; local conditions are so different. 
Gophers and Black Cats. 

The best antidote to gophers is a good hunting 
strain of cats, and black ones are the best, for the 
coyotes, as a rule, do not molest them ; an old trapper 
explained this to me by saying they took them for 
skunks. 

I never hesitate to plant alfalfa on sod. There is 
a prejudice against this, but it comes from those who 
plow it in ribbons 2 or 3 inches thick. If the sod is 
broken 8 or 9 inches deep, disced on both sides (before 
and after plowing) and thoroughly fined down by disc- 
ing and harrowing alternately, it makes a magnificent 
seed bed for alfalfa, and in thin sandy soil that blows 
a much superior one to any old field which is full of 
weeds and packs easily. 

When the roots of young plants get down into 
the cool moist dirt 10 or 12 inches below the surface 
they are safe from drouth, and this can be secured in 
about two months' time if the conditions are made 
right by deep plowing. 

Land Men's Opportunity. 

There is no easier way for a land speculator to 
make money than to hunt up dry lands on bottoms and 
other places with water at 15, 20 or 30 feet, and plant 
them to alfalfa. Corn, wheat and other crops may dry 
out on such lands in dry years, but alfalfa will in a 
few years get down to the permanently moist stratum 
just above the water, and yield three immense crops 



35 YEARS WITH DRY FARM ALFALFA 151 

every year without irrigation. Where the water bed is 
20 feet it may take three years to do this ; where it is 
30 feet, four or five years. The most vigorous plants 
get down first, others follow the next season, and 
eventually the whole field begins to grow, regardless 
of the weather. 

On the dry farm one of the principal functions of 
alfalfa is to restore the soil. If any particular field 
is getting thin, showing signs of depletion, manure 
it a little and put it into alfalfa before it is too late. If 
you have a sand bar with moisture at depth, manure it 
also and do the same. 

Once a piece of land is planted to alfalfa, you are 
through with it, at any rate for the time being, and 
many unsightly places may be made to yield hand- 
somely with this crop. Some prefer to plant it in rows 
in order to cultivate it ; this is a good way to do ; but 
will the farmer give it any more cultivation than when 
planted otherwise? Probably not, for all and any 
alfalfa may be harrowed in the spring before sprouting 
and once after each cutting, which makes four cultiva- 
tions to the season. 

On old established alfalfa with large crowns some 
use the disc, but there is no doubt that splitting the 
crown allows water and bacteria to invade the tuber, 
favoring rot and other fungoid diseases, but not so 
much in dry land alfalfa as vv^ith the irrigated variety. 
What Variety to Sow. 

Farmers often ask me what variety of alfalfa to 
plant. Now to tell the truth I am altogether at sea 
on this point. All the different experiment stations 
seem to have their own pet variety ; but we hear more 
talk of the Grimm than any other kind. On my ranch 
we planted Colorado irrigated seed ; paid high prices 
for Turkestan ; planted dry raised seed from Mexico. 
They all came up, they all did well, they all made hay, 
they all looked alike to me. 



152 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

Does it pay to inoculate your land with the nitri- 
fying bacteria? Probably it does in some cases, but 
there is little if any seed west of the Missouri which 
is not already infected, and the nodules seem to come 
on the roots almost as soon as the alfalfa is planted; 
but if they do not, a little of the top-soil from a neigh- 
boring field will accomplish the desired result. The 
farther we go east out of the lime soils the more neces- 
sary it seems to inoculate the land. 

This is explained by the hypothesis that in form- 
ing nitrates or nitric acid solutions, the bacteria after a 
while die in their own juice — too much acid — but when 
there is lime in the soil it uses up this surplus acid by 
combining with it and forming nitrate of calcium, and 
the bacterial colonies continue to flourish. For these 
reasons lime soils are to be preferred for alfalfa. 

In these days of baby beef and balanced rations 
the raiser of alfalfa may be apt to postpone the harvest- 
ing of his crop just when the weather is most propi- 
tious, in order that the plants may ripen up more, 
acquiring perhaps an infinitesimal per cent more nitro- 
gen to enhance its feed value ; but should he be caught 
in a heavy rain with his hay down, he may lose 20% 
of its feeding value in one day. 

It is more practical in every way to make hay while 
the sun shines and not be led away by side issues. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Amber Cane, Milo, Kaffir Com, Broom Com 

ALL of the above belonging to the sorghum family 
are good drouth registers, and adapted to the 
semi dry area, but possess certain characteris- 
tics demanding a corresponding e"vironn,ent For 
instance : They all require heat ; mdo and kafe more 
than cane- therefore, the best sorghum for hot days 
fnd co^oT^ights, high-altitudes and the "1 country 
is the amber cane. This to be pure should be black 
seeded, the white-seeded being larger and later. 

D^wn in the hot plains, milo is the favorite, the 
grain being, as a rule, heavier than Kaffir, .t requires a 
longer season than cane, but matures more grain. 

^The land for sorghum should be prepared the same 
as for corn. The planting may be done with the ordi- 
nary corn planter by having small hole plates made on 
llrla-^e or bv plugging up the holes with lead until 
tTrighi "ze is ^btai^ed for dropping the right amount 

°* '^Sowing usually begins on the plains about June 
ist, and may be continued until July, but for grain 

should be in by June ist. ^ , ^ * t i„rh 

Since sorghum seed is planted only about i inch 
deep it is necessary that the field be as smooth as 
possible. It may be seeded deeper than this, however, 
in warm friable "soil. The best depth for planting any 
seed must finally be decided by the farmer himself, for 
he alone understands the exact soil and climatic con- 
ditions in his own neighborhood. The general rule 
however, is— plant shallow when there is any danger ot 
rotting from cold weather, from too much crust or too 
much moisture-plant deep when the conditions are 
right for quick growth. The amount of seed per acre 



154 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

is usually about 5 to 8 pounds for grain, lo to 15 for 
fodder, planted in rows and cultivated in the same way 
as corn. It is a good crop on sod, having yielded on 
the writer's ranch as high as three tons dry feed to 
the acre on new ground broken 8 inches deep. 

Broom corn must be planted according to the 
manner in which it grows on the soil in which it is 
intended to raise it, for when planted too thinly it may 
be too coarse, and when seeded too heavily it may prove 
too fine for broom manufacture ; therefore, before going 
heavily into the raising of this crop, the farmer is 
advised to try it out. Broom corn has proved im- 
mensely profitable where the conditions of growth, 
market, and labor have been satisfactory. 

Amber cane is a first rate cow feed for cream, and 
by feeding it once a day in conjunction with alfalfa, 
provides a fairly well balanced ration. After harvest- 
ing the cane, the field should not be pastured until 
frozen and dried brown. The green leaves at the foot 
of the stalk left by the binder, freeze, ferment, and 
develop a poisonous volatile acid which evaporates and 
disappears during the process of drying. 

Too much cane fed at the start will sometimes 
surfeit cattle and put them ofif their feed ; it should be 
introduced gradually until they become accustomed to 
it, when a full ration can be fed with impunity. 

Sorghum will heat and mold very easily ; it is 
cured in small shocks tied tightly at the top to prevent 
the rain from piercing the center. 



CHAPTER XIX 

Rye, Oats, Barley, Emmer, Speltz 

RYE is a very valuable dry farm feed crop, it 
seldom if ever fails, and if harvested at the 
right time makes a fine grade of hay. Fall rye 
as a crop is as much superior to spring rye as w^inter 
wheat is to spring wheat. 

To raise rye for the grain which is usually a 
profitable crop, the same methods of culture should be 
used as for winter wheat. 

Farmers complain that it never runs as high in 
yield as wheat. The reason is that they usually give 
the wheat better treatment. 

On summer-fallowed land, fall rye will often go 
50 bushels to the acre ; on land plowed in August or 
September, 30 bushels is no unusual crop with deep 
plowing. 

For hay it may be disced in on the corn stubble 
without plowing; but to do this and expect a payable 
crop of grain is absurd. 

Its value to the dry farmer consists in quantity 
more than quality, but the feed value is not any 
lower than that of timothy hay if cut at the proper 
time. The best time to mow it for hay is about a week 
after it heads out, then if stacked light and clean with- 
out rain damage, every animal on the ranch will eat it 
clean. By this method all the starch is saved in the 
hay instead of in the dough, and another cutting may 
be obtained in a favorable season, for the earlier it is 
mowed the better chance for a second crop. While 
the new settler is getting some of his land into alfalfa, 
he can depend on rye for hay. 

It is usually seeded at the rate of 40 to 45 pounds 
per acre for hay and 30 pounds when grain is wanted ; 



156 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

by trying to raise both at one and the same time the 
grain is usually shriveled, and the hay tough and wiry, 
which has given it a bad name with those who have 
not discovered the proper methods of handling it. 

Oats. 

This crop is often a failure on the dry farm for the 
reason that there exists a belief that it can be raised 
without plowing. 

The fact is, oats like flax and some other crops 
prefer a solid seed bed, and many knowing this think 
it is a waste of time to plow. 

The trouble is, without good deep plowing it is 
impossible to conserve moisture, for the plowing has 
more to do with accumulation and conservation than 
cultivating. There is only one way to secure profitable 
crops of oats one year with another. This method is 
to plow deep in the fall lO or 12 inches at least, and 
leave it all winter to pack ; if it contains 2 or 3 feet of 
moisture by spring it is safe to plant oats, otherwise 
not, for if there is only a foot or so of moisture in the 
ground, and the weather turns dry, it is impossible to 
make a fair crop. 

Seventy-five bushels to the acre may be easily 
raised on 15 inches precipitation for the season, and 
probably half that amount in a dry year by the above 
method. The dry farmer is not advised to attempt to 
raise oats on 5-inch plowing performed once only in 
three or four years. A careful canvas of the situation 
in a country where this is done shows one profitable 
crop in every three years. 

Barley. 

The best drouth-resisting barley is the hulless 
or beardless. It may be cut for hay or harvested for 
grain. Horses do well on it but chickens prefer wheat. 
It should be planted in April on fall plowed land. 

There are many varieties of barley; their drouth- 
resisting qualities are about the same as ordinary 



RYE, OATS, BARLEY, EMMER, SPELTZ 157 

wheat, but hardly equal to those of the hard Russian, 
such as the Kubanka and others. Thirty-five pounds 
to the acre is the amount of seed usually planted. 
Emmer. 

The best known variety of this grain is the black 
winter emmer originated by Professor Bufifum of 
Worland, Wyoming. 

The methods of culture are about the same as for 
winter wheat. This crop has yielded as high as 60 
bushels to the acre and it is said to be good feed for 
stock, partaking of the nature of hard wheat. 
Spelt. Speltz. Spelz. 

The name of this grain is "spelt" in different ways, 
but they all mean the same thing — emmer is the 
proper name. 

A farmer would say it was a cross between a 
wheat and a barley, a botanist would probably call it 
a variety of wheat. 

Its feed value is good, for anything that likes it. 
It is said to yield more heavily than barley, but for 
some reason since being introduced into this country 
has not become very popular with the farmers. 

It is cultivated in the same manner as barley. 
Cultivation of Small Grain. 

This is usually done with the harrow until the 
plants are about a foot high, and after that with the 
spring tooth weeder, fully explained in the article on 
wheat. 

Seeding. 

The usual amount of seed used per acre is from 
30 to 40 pounds and it is found that the poorer the soil 
the more seed is necessary. The depth is from 2 to 3 
inches ; deep in light soil, shallow in heavy soil. 



CHAPTER XX 

Dry Land Flax 

THIS is a very profitable dry farm crop wherever 
the conditions are right, and the seasons favor- 
able. It is more suited to the cooler states 
than the hot plains, and is found growing wild in the 
foothills, but not very far south. 

There are wild perennial varieties which come up 
from the root every year like alfalfa, but the seed is 
too small to be valuable. It is quite likely, however, 
that a perennial variety may be evolved by crossing, 
which will prove of value, and from which a crop may 
be harvested every year withotit replanting. The wild 
varieties do not seem to be afflicted with the blight or 
wilt to the same extent as the types under cultivation. 

Flax does best on a deep, well settled seed bed. 
To plow deep in the spring and then plant immedi- 
ately is wasted effort as far as flax is concerned. 

The ground should be plowed deep in the fall or 
at least disced at that time, and plowed early in the 
spring, and thoroughly disced and harrowed alter- 
nately until the bottom (lower half of the seed bed) 
is quite solid. 

Because flax prefers a compact seed bed is no 
reason for shallow plowing. It is this style of surface 
farming which accounts for so many ridiculously low 
yields, for with proper tillage it may be made a heavy 
yielding, profitable crop. It is a good drouth resister 
where the rays of the sun are not too hot, which seem 
to have a greater effect on it than scarcity of mois- 
ture ; for this reason it is better to drill it in north and 
south rather than east and west. Flax will grow on any 
ordinary sandy loam soil, and the right physical condi- 
tion of the ground seems to be of more importance 



DRY LAND FLAX 159 

than high fertility. It is often said that it is hard on 
the soil, but this idea is hardly borne out by facts, 
except that by means of its root ramifications which 
are exceedingly close, it uses up more moisture, more 
soil solution than some other crops ; at the same time 
it will mature seed with less moisture actually in the 
soil than any small grain crop. 

Flax has its own diseases as every crop has ; but 
by disinfecting the seed with formaldehyde and rotat- 
ing, they can be easily avoided. The principal of these 
is blight or wilt, and it usually occurs after glaring hot 
spells with an insufficiency of moisture. Whether the 
spores of this disease gain an entrance through a 
scalded portion of the stem or leaves or effect a lodg- 
ment through the root is not as yet known ; but it is 
known that the infection remains in the ground, and 
nothing will kill it out except planting another crop 
upon which the fungi cannot thrive — starving them to 
death. 

The amount of seed planted to the acre is usually 
about 25 to 30 pounds. 

The only source of profit from flax at present is 
the seed for oil and oil cake ; but the time will come, 
and it is to be hoped in the near future, when the fibre 
also will be purchased for the manufacture of linen, 
and there is no question but that a marketable grade 
can be raised upon which a large industry could be 
built up. Some of our empire builders should take 
this matter up. 



CHAPTER XXI 

Potatoes on the Dry Farm 

THIS crop may be raised in some soils and not 
at all in others. As to what constitutes a 
potato soil is an agricultural conundrum which 
has never been solved. It is known, however, that 
potash, and phosphorus are essential, for in every 
potato belt a fair amount of these minerals is always 
present in the soil. 

Therefore, if the dry farmer happens to be in a 
good potato belt, there is nothing to prevent him 
from raising them provided he is willing to do the 
work, but unless there is a goodly amount of moisture 
in the ground, and the season looks favorable, he had 
better plant some other crop which requires less 
moisture. 

The secret of raising a big crop is a deep, well 
worked seed bed in the best of tilth, neither too loose 
nor too compact. The texture must be finely grained 
and even (homogeneous) throughout without lumps 
or clods. Therefore the most friable soil on the farm, 
if rich enough, should be chosen for this purpose. 

Some large crops of potatoes have been made by 
planting on summer-fallowed land, but if this is not 
done the land should be plowed in the fall, and winter- 
fallowed in the rough to catch the snow. In the 
spring the field should, if possible, be cross plowed, 
and harrowed and disced alternately until the surface 
is fine and mellow. It is impossible to plow too deeply 
for potatoes; in the island of Jersey they are now 
plowing 20 inches deep, fertilizing with kelp (sea- 
weed) and raising 600 bushels to the acre. 

The potatoes should not be planted over 4 inches 
deep, for they need the surface warmth, and will root 




Dry Farm Flower Bed and Silver Poplars, E. R. Parson's Farm. 



POTATOES ON THE DRY FARM i6i 

and sprout with greater vigor than when planted 
deeper. 

The time of planting must depend on local con- 
ditions, and like many other things must be tried out 
by the farmer himself and his neighbors, some favor- 
ing April planting, some May and some June. 

The best results are obtained by planting a piece 
of choice potato containing one eye in each hill, which 
should be 2 feet apart in the row, with rows 3 feet apart. 

If the weather turns dry the hills should be 
thinned down to one sprout each ; but with plenty of 
moisture in the ground more may be left. 

It should always be kept in mind that the success 
of a potato crop depends on rich friable soil, deep 
plowing, and constant cultivation. Therefore, as soon 
as the sprouts appear the harrow should be started; 
very few will be torn out by this implement if properly 
slanted, but if necessary the teeth which strike the 
row may be removed. When the plants are too high 
for the harrow, the corn cultivator is used, and inter- 
tillage may be profitably performed until after the 
blossoming period, but the potatoes should not be 
hilled up, as they are in the humid states. 

Fairly level cultivation is the best, and if there are 
2 or 3 feet of moisture in the soil when the crop is 
planted the chances of obtaining a large crop are 
excellent in a district where the soil is right. 

In order to raise crops one year with another, 
heavy manuring and rotation with some grain crop or 
alfalfa should be practiced. In soil which is not over 
rich, good crops may often be secured for a year or two 
by planting on newly plowed sod. The sod should 
be disced in wet weather and the surface thoroughly 
disintegrated before plowing, which should be 8 or 9 
inches deep or deeper if possible, and the field must 
be worked up into a fine tilth by alternate discing and 
harrowing before the potatoes are planted. 



i62 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

The work should be done in the fall and some 
moisture conserved before planting, for the chances of 
a crop on spring plowing are very poor, unless there 
happens to be an unusually heavy rainfall. Even 
when the land is plowed in the fall another plowing 
in the spring is very beneficial, but if this is not given, 
a good deep discing will help the seed bed. 

It is impossible to say how any particular potato 
will do in any given neighborhood until the matter is 
tested out ; but in the central dry farming states the 
following varieties are used by the successful growers 
and have a good chance of doing well anywhere. 
Early Rose, Petoskey, Early Ohio, Irish Cobbler, 
Peachblow, and Early Six Weeks; besides these, of 
course, are many varieties known locally. 

The Early Six Weeks may be planted in states 
of the latitude of Colorado, Kansas, etc., as early as 
April loth and will often make potatoes for the family 
by the middle of July. 

The tubers of potatoes are subject to scab and the 
foliage to blight, but these troubles may be almost 
entirely prevented by disinfecting the seed and by 
rotation. 

Sometimes the crop seems to be helped by prun- 
ing off some of the tops or the blossoms, but nothing 
definite has resulted when this idea has been put to 
the test. 

By the methods outlined above a yield of 250 
bushels to the acre has been obtained in a favorable 
season. 



CHAPTER XXII 

Beans, Peanuts, Millet, Peas 

BOTH Mexican and Navy beans are good dry 
farm crops, and will yield heavily on conserved 
moisture. Fall plowed land worked over in the 
spring is better than spring plowed ; but if the latter is 
used it should be plowed lo or 12 inches deep in 
March, and disced and harrowed alternately until 
thoroughly fine and mellow, the last working being 
performed just before planting after all danger from 
frost is over. 

The Mexican bean is a little the best yielder as 
a rule, but the Navy brings the most in the market. 
Both of these are row crops and should be cultivated 
by the same rules as corn. They must not be planted 
near a prairie dog town, for these rodents, and also 
rabbits, feed on the leaves. 

Planted in rows 3 feet apart and a single plant 
every 6 or 8 inches is the right method to secure a 
good yield. A specially constructed plate is used in 
the corn planter for this work, and may also be tried 
for peanuts, although some claim that planting by 
hand or with the hand planter is best for the latter. 

Beans should be planted about 2 inches deep and 
25 pounds will plant an acre. 

One of the best methods of harvesting this crop 
is to attach a canvas to the sickle-bar of the mower, 
allowing it to trail, and hold the beans as they are cut 
to prevent loss by shattering. 

Peanuts may be raised in the hot plains country 
of southern Colorado, New Mexico, and other states. 
Peanuts and milo are found in the same districts, and 
grow under the same climatic conditions. The 
Spanish peanut (really a Mexican adaptation) is the 



i64 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

best variety to grow and the most drouth-resistant. 

It is difficult to harvest as in digging or Hfting 
the nuts often break off, and are left in the ground. 
The problem, however, of harvesting is easily over- 
come by pasturing to hogs and cattle ; the former get 
the nuts, the latter the tops. They are sometimes 
lifted vine and all by loosening the rows with a plow 
minus the moldboard. 

In their proper environment they will mature in 
90 days. When the growth is good they may be 
mowed for hay, the tops being almost an equivalent 
for alfalfa, and sometimes running as high as three- 
fourths of a ton to the acre. 

Hogs turned into a peanut pasture should gain 
at the rate of 1,000 pounds for every acre. 

The growth of the peanut is retarded only by 
long drouth, but as soon as moisture falls, fresh 
sprouts are developed, and the plant takes on a new 
lease of life, usually maturing a crop. 

This characteristic places it in the ranks with the 
sorghums and other great drouth resisters ; it is in- 
valuable in the warmer dry farming states. 

Millet. 

Millet makes a very rich hay which must be fed 
sparingly. The German is the favorite variety. It is a 
good catch crop when other crops have failed, and may 
be planted as late as July ist. It is not exactly a sure 
crop, for it is easily injured by hail when first sprouting. 

It may be cut and cured for hay just as the grain 
is ripening. Chickens will eat millet, but not in 
preference to wheat. 

It should be seeded about 20 pounds to the acre, 
and dragged in lightly with a slanted harrow, on a 
fine smooth seed bed. 

Peas. 

The Canada pea and other field peas must not be 
confused with the cow-pea, which is of the nature of 



BEANS, PEANUTS, MILLET, PEAS 165 

a bean and will not stand light frosts. The former 
prefer cool climates, cannot grow in extreme heat, and 
sun-burn easily on light colored soils ; but are valuable 
in the northern states, do well in late cool seasons, and 
may be planted early. 

The cow-pea is at home in the warmer or more 
central dry farming states and may be planted from 
May to July as it will mature under the right condi- 
tions in about 80 days. All peas are deep-rooted and 
do the best in deep plowed or subsoiled land. They 
may be drilled in at the rate of 80 to 90 pounds to the 
acre. The tops are good feed for stock, and they are 
usually harvested by mowing and cocking in the field ; 
hogs or sheep being turned in to clean up. 

The most profitable method, however, with crops 
of this kind is to pasture them off on the ground, and 
then plow them under in the shape of manure. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Vines, Root Crops, Sugar Beets 

ON many dry farms, especially those on gulches, 
there is often to be found an odd corner facing 
north with good sandy soil, and some leaf 
mold. This is just the place for vine crops. 
Pumpkins and Squashes. 

Pumpkins and squashes prefer some shade, and 
for that reason are often planted with corn ; but if 
this is done on the dry farm, they should be put in 
only where there are vacant hills. Thus when there 
happens to be a poor stand of corn it may often to 
advantage be filled up with vines of pumpkins and 
squashes. When these crops are planted alone in the 
field the land should be plowed very deeply and laid 
off in lands, leaving a dead furrow every 8 feet. These 
dead furrows should then be worked up and down 
with the plow, and about half filled with the top soil 
before being planted. 

The seed should be dropped in hills about 5 or 6 
feet apart. About 2 to 3 pounds of pumpkin seed will 
plant an acre. 

Mice, prairie dogs and gophers are very fond of 
these seeds, and will get nearly all of them unless 
treated with some ill flavored material. 

Watermelons and Cucumbers. 

Watermelons and cucumbers belong in the gar- 
den, but may be raised in sandy loam by the above 
method if the soil is rich enough. 
Turnips. 

The best root crops on the dry farm after potatoes 
is turnips. Late planting sometime in July usually 
gives the best results, and the strap leaf varieties seem 



VINES, ROOT CROPS, SUGAR BEETS 167 

to be the best adapted to dry land conditions. The 
turnip fly, which eats holes in the leaves, hatches out 
in the early spring, but begins to disappear in June. 

Land for this crop may be plowed early, and clean 
fallowed until planting time ; the surface should be 
fine, and the seed dragged in or drilled about half an 
inch deep. If the seed is good, 6 pounds to the acre 
will be plenty. 

When the stand is too thick it may be thinned 
by harrowing. If desired this crop may be planted in 
rows and cultivated. 

Rutabagas, Carrots, Mangel Wurzels. 

The culture of rutabagas is the same as that of 
turnips. Carrots may be raised in the field but are 
difficult to weed ; they should be planted in rows about 
2 feet apart, and cultivated with a one-horse garden 
cultivator ; early planting is the best. Mangel Wurzels 
for cattle belong to the beet tribe and are raised by the 
same methods as sugar beets. 

Sugar Beets. 

Sugar beets may be profitable raised by dry farm- 
ing methods and may be made to yield ten tons to the 
acre in favorable years. No farmer, however, is 
advised to go into this line of agriculture unless he is 
prepared to do the work as outlined below. 

The land should be rich and mellow, besides 
being thoroughly prepared as is recommended for 
potatoes. The beet needs a deep, friable, homogene- 
ous seed bed. When the ground is plowed 4 or 5 
inches the beet will be the same length ; therefore, to 
obtain a 10- or 12-inch beet, 10- or 12-inch plowing 
must be done. 

It is a waste of time and seed to plant beets in 
dry ground, and although some pretty fair specimens 
have been raised on the winter-fallow, the only safe 
method which it is possible to recommend is the alter- 
nate fallow system. 



i68 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

By fallowing a field one year and planting it the 
next, the weeds are nearly all killed out and half the 
expense of raising beets (the hand weeding) is 
avoided. 

The unirrigated beet is not as large as the irri- 
gated, but contains more sugar, and there is little 
doubt but that it would bring more at the factory. 
They should be planted in rows about 30 inches apart 
and thinned down until they are a foot apart in the 
row. Deep plowing and intensive cultivation make 
the crop. 

About 6 pounds of seed to the acre is usually 
planted after danger from frost is over. The land, if 
fallowed a whole season, should be disced as deeply as 
possible and thoroughly pulverized before planting. 
A second plowing in the spring not necessarily as deep 
as the first is even better than a discing. For sowing, 
the press drill is the best implement now in use. 

Note. 

Although the writer has given directions for the 
raising of a variety of crops, he believes that the best 
procedure for the beginner is to go slow, commencing 
with standard dry farming crops ; such as corn, 
sorghum, rye, winter wheat and alfalfa — all good 
drouth resisters, gradually working into other crops 
as he finds it profitable or not, always remembering 
that feed crops for stock need not necessarily fully 
mature or attain the standard of excellence demanded 
by buyers of grain, and that while some past masters 
in the art of dry farming have raised everything under 
the sun and made fortunes out of small grain, it is usu- 
ally much safer, and, in a general way, more profitable 
■on account of transportation and market conditions to 
convert the farm crops into such staple articles as 
beef, mutton, pork, poultry, eggs, butter, etc., and 
ship them in concentrated form. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

The Dry Farm Garden 

THE correct principle in this domestic branch of 
dry farming is : To provide moisture for the 
rows of vegetables in the dry farm garden by 
drainage from the adjoining soil surfaces. We all 
know how easy it is even on the dry farm to raise flow- 
ers, plants, creepers, etc., in little beds around the 
house and under the drip from the roof; this drainage 
from the roof provides precipitation from a larger area 
than the plant could otherwise receive, hence it gets 
more than its share — more than its share would be in 
the field. 

This is the principle we apply to the garden ; for 
a few feet of space more or less make little difference, 
and more space means more moisture, especially when 
we show how all the water which falls on this space 
can be drained directly to the roots of the plants. 

The land for the garden should be plowed as 
deeply as possible in strips 5 feet wide which will leave 
a dead-furrow every 5 feet, and a ridge or back-furrow 



■ dff 1 

Plan of the Dry Farm Garden Showing How the Dead-Furrows 
are Plowed Out to Give Root Depth at A and B, for the 
Vegetable Rows. 

between every two dead-furrows, in other words, alter- 
nate hollows and ridges. 

The rows of vegetables are, of course, in the hol- 
lows and get the run-off or drainage from the ridges 
which gives them about three times as much water as 
the crops in the field receive. 



170 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

Before planting, however, the dead-furrows should 
be given an extra plowing to allow plenty of depth for 
rooting, and some leaf mold or corral humus mixed 
in with the soil. 

For the garden there is nothing like leaf mold if 
you can get it, but failing that, the next best thing is 
humus from some old cattle or sheep corral. 

It will pay well to haul a few loads of leaf mold 
and distribute it up and down the dead-furrows before 
plowing under. 

It may seem a good deal of work, but one good 
fertilizing will last for several years and green peas, 
fresh beans, cabbages, carrots, turnips, beets, aspara- 
gus, etc., with nearly every meal are surely worth 
while. 

The site for the garden should be selected where 
the soil is rich and deep ; but where there is no choice, 
near the house is always the handiest. Some enter- 
prising folks, will often pack water to their garden, but 
this should never be done early in the season because 
it encourages the plants to root too near the surface, 
and then when warm weather comes they can with 
difficulty be prevented from wilting; therefore if plants 
are watered at all, they should be watered only as a 
last resort at or near maturing time. To water by 
hand hills of melons, squashes and cucumbers, even 
tomatoes, there is nothing handier than a quart can 
with some holes in the bottom sunk in each hill. The 
water is poured into the can and leaks slowly into the 
ground and sub-irrigates the plant without any waste. 

The garden should be kept well cultivated or hoed 
and no crusts allowed to form, and if all these details 
are properly attended to will prove a material addition 
to the resources of the farm. 

In planting in the row, plenty of space also is nec- 
essary ; a good rule being to give everything twice as 
much room as usual. 



THE DRY FARM GARDEN 171 

Cabbage planted 2 feet apart in the row and the 
rows 5 feet apart have 2x5=10 square feet to exploit 
for moisture; with a precipitation of 12 inches, 10 
square feet will receive 625 pounds of water; now we 
can raise a very good cabbage on 300 pounds, and a 
fine cauliflower on 400 pounds, so that if the precipita- 
tion is conserved in the soil the year around we can 
allow nearly half for waste by evaporation and then 
raise a fine garden. 

Asparagus and pie plant do particularly well with- 
out irrigation, while peas, lettuce and radishes should 
be planted as early as possible to avoid the heat. 
Beans always do well, also melons, cucumbers and 
squashes when deep rooted, otherwise they will wilt 
easily and become stunted. 

The lettuce bed should be shaded in summer with 
a board or two. Strawberries should be planted 2 feet 
apart in the row and no runners allowed. 

Turnips should be planted late to avoid the little 
hoppers which eat the leaves ; ashes, however, will help 
to keep them away, also on the radish bed. 

Some of the best flowers are, holly-hocks, petunias, 
portulaca, nasturtiums, phlox, and poppies. The best 
climber is the Virginia Creeper, in the seed books it 
is listed as Ampelopsis quinquefolia. 



CHAPTER XXV 

Dry Farm Horticulture 

THERE is nothing easier in dry farming than 
raising trees. They discovered this in Califor- 
nia half a century ago and the dry farm fruit 
product consisting of olives, walnuts, wine grapes, 
prunes, peaches, apricots, etc., raised on less than 17 
inches of precipitation without irrigation runs into 
the millions. 

Why are trees easy to grow? Because as I have 
always pointed out, successful dry farming is a matter 
of depth. 

We can plant a seed 2 or 3 inches deep ; but we 
can plant a tree 2 feet deep in a subsoil 17% wet, con- 
taining enough moisture when properly mulched to 
carry the tree a whole season without a single drop 
of rain. How much of this 17% moist soil is needed 
to do this? Not less than 2 feet, more if possible. 

How do we get this? We can make sure of it by 
planning a year ahead, by plowing and fallowing until 
the requisite moisture is secured. 

Nature may provide it during the winter months 
whether we fallow or not, and if she does so, it is quite 
safe to plant trees in the spring. 

Water Required By Apple Tree. 

A 15-year-old apple tree, I find on my ranch, does 
very well with about 60 tons of water, making several 
boxes of good sized apples. How do we get this 60 
tons of water for each tree? 

We plant the trees 40 feet apart which gives each 
tree 1,600 square feet; with a precipitation of 14 to 15 
inches such as I farm on, you will find if you figure it 
up that 60 tons of water approximately fall on this 
square of 40x40. 



DRY FARM HORTICULTURE 173 

Cherries and plums will do with much less; the 
allowance for them is 20x20 ; small fruits 10x10. Why 
does a tree use so much water? 

Because the soil solution carries only one part of 
solid matter in several thousand of water and to secure 
this mineral matter the tree takes up the solution, 
transpires the water through the leaves into the atmos- 
phere and hangs on to the mineral matter. 
Loss From Transpiration. 

How much of this water can a tree transpire in a 
day? A 20-year apple tree during a warm summer's 
day may transpire from 15 to 30 gallons. How about 
other vegetation? Everything does so more or less 
according to their leaf structure. Does this transpira- 
tion affect the climate? It certainly has a local effect; 
the settled districts of the west show a higher atmos- 
pheric humidity than they did years ago. 

Will this increase the rainfall? We do not know; 
the Meteorological Department has not existed long 
enough to provide the adequate data. 

We do know, however, that hygroscopic mois- 
ture is just as valuable to the dry farmer as rain- 
fall, for it cuts down the evaporation, which saves 
moisture. 

How to Plant Trees. 

In planting trees 40 feet apart, we would prepare 
the ground by plowing lands 40 feet wide, planting the 
trees in the dead-furrow. This saves a whole lot of 
digging, for if the plow gets down 8 or 10 inches deep 
the holes need be dug only about another 15 inches, 
and about 2 feet wide. When planting 20 feet apart 
the lands, of course, must be 20 feet wide and so on. 
The best way is to plow and fallow during the spring 
and summer months and dig the holes in the fall giving 
them a chance to fill up with snow and slush. 

This dead-furrow method is also a help to the 
young trees because it leaves the ground dished 



174 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

towards them, throwing all the run-off right to their 
roots. 

In order to handle trees just right, which they 
seldom do in the nurseries, it is necessary to under- 
stand something about their anatom3^ The most deli- 
cate part of a tree is the root ; this has no bark to pro- 
tect it ; it is designed to exist in a moist cool environ- 
ment, heat and sunlight destroy it. 

Damage Done by Poor Handling. 

Ten minutes in the sun will reduce its vitality by 
one-third, one hour will cause the tree to hang fire after 
planting out, and not leaf out perhaps for months until 
all damage is repaired ; one day in the sun will destroy 
almost any tree. 

Buy from a nursery which has proved up, as per 
testimony from the neighbors, not from one which 
sells trees dead or alive or dying. 

Trees should be packed in paper-lined boxes and 
the roots kept moist ; as soon as they arrive they 
should be taken out and buried in moist soil up to the 
branches in order to plump up and recuperate. They 
should be well sprinkled and kept damp until needed 
to plant ; a week or two of this will not hurt them. In 
taking them out to plant, the roots should be covered 
with wet sacks. Here we come to the two most im- 
portant rules in tree planting. 

They are : Cut back three-fourths of the top, and 
tamp the roots solid. Unless you make a good earth 
connection between the tree and mother earth, you 
might as well throw it away. 

An Old Fallacy. 

''Shall I put anything besides earth in the hole?" 
you say. Not on your life. We know what grand- 
father did : He put old bones, or steer's heads or dead 
cats and manure in the holes and had the finest trees 
in the whole country side. This was all right for him 
because he lived in a wet country ; but we dare not do 



DRY FARM HORTICULTURE 175 

this. In the first place it is not necessary, and in the 
second place this rubbish makes air spaces, and these 
air spaces are deadly to have around the roots of a tree 
when moisture is scarce. We want a solid firm contact 
between the root and the fine, soft, moist earth, noth- 
ing more and nothing less. 

The orchard may be manured later on by discing 
it in on the surface when necessary. 

When the trees are big the leaves should be cul- 
tivated under in the fall for humus and not be allowed 
to blow off. 

Any Good Land is Fruit Land. 

We hear a lot of talk among real estate men 
about fruit land ; but the sum total of it is usually 
that the land is good for fruit because they have 
it to sell. 

Any good land which will raise grain or corn will 
raise fruit if the subsoil is right. Sandy soil is fit for 
orchards only v/hen it is deep and rich right through 
to a good depth, but clay loam is almost always safe 
to plant on unless it runs into joint clay or other barren 
stuff at two or three feet. 

There are many places in California where the top 
soil was used up by planting it to small grain from 
30 or 40 years, which is producing fine crops of grapes, 
prunes, plums, peaches, etc., from the subsoil, which 
happened to be composed of different strata of good 
wash dirt. 

As far as exposure is concerned some prefer an 
east or south or southeast and some a north exposure, 
and as to which is the best is usually determined by 
the spring weather which is different every season. 
Tn planting on river bottoms it is very necessary to 
ascertain how deep it is to water, for fruit trees are 
upland by nature and a water-logged condition of the 
soil will kill them ; for this reason I would not care to 
plant them with water any closer than 10 feet. 



176 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

Apples will stand more water than cherries or 
plums, but too much favors winter-killing in any fruit 
tree. As in all dry farming we must cultivate the 
orchard with an eye to accumulation as well as con- 
servation ; we must allow no run-off. I find in my own 
orchard that enough cultivation to keep the weeds out, 
namely about 12 times during the season, will conserve 
about all the moisture that can be conserved. 
Cultivation. 

Ten or twelve cultivations will also keep all the 
crusts broken and the surface perfectly loose. For 
accumulation purposes the work should be as rough as 
possible, about three inches deep and well furrowed. 

A good plowing once a year especially in the fall 
is recommended ; cutting the surface roots does not 
seem to injure or hurt the trees in any way. In Cali- 
fornia all the orchards both dry and irrigated are 
plowed at least once a year, usually over 8 inches deep. 

In my orchard the trees were planted about 6 
inches deeper than they were in the nursery, which 
leaves plenty of room above the roots for either plow 
or cultivator. When trees are planted on a side hill, 
something more than ordinary cultivation is needed 
to prevent run-ofif. This is accomplished with the disc, 
and the reversible disc is the best ; for, with this imple- 
ment, the rows can be hollowed out to catch the water 
or filled again whenever the owner desires. When 
the disc is run once or twice in the same row it makes 
what we might term a hollow terrace across the slope 
which hold water perfectly. When the row between 
trees becomes too deep it can be partially or entirely 
filled by reversing the disc. 

These rows which cross a slope should be run 
as level as possible to discourage run-off, and the cul- 
tivation when done both ways should be done across 
last, so as to leave everything in shape to catch a 
heavy rainfall. 



DRY FARM HORTICULTURE 177 

When to Cultivate. 

I am often asked if there is any object in cuUivat- 
ing when the mulch has not been crusted by rain since 
the last cultivation. I do not believe there is, although 
in some of the Pacific states v^^here the humidity is 
high and some distillation from the subsoil during the 
cool nights, we find sometimes the mulch settling and 
breaking to some extent without any rain. 

There is no question whatever but that dry raised 
trees properly attended to obtain all the water they 
require under a precipitation of some 14 or 15 inches 
and from my own observations on this point feel con- 
fident I could raise upland trees on a precipitation of 
8 inches. 

Opportunity to Store Soil Water. 

We have already shown that by giving our largest 
trees, the apples, a square of 40 feet (planting them 
40 feet apart each way) we are allowing them about 
60 tons of water per annum when the precipitation is 
about 15 inches; but the young apple tree does not 
need, when first planted, more than a few hundred 
pounds per annum — then what becomes of the other 
59 tons and over? That part of it which is not evapor- 
ated in transit goes into the ground and we conserve 
it for future use ; therefore we soon discover we are 
gaining moisture at the rate of several feet a year, and 
it is not uncommon to find that after the sixth year, we 
have 10 to 15 feet which will render any tree absolutely 
drouth proof for several seasons whether it rains or not. 

It was the discovery of these facts that led me to 
plant a commercial orchard in 1894, and as I have ex- 
plained before, you may have 100 feet of dry subsoil 
under your moisture, but it cannot steal it notwith- 
standing all the nonsense they talk about capillarity. 
As the trees get older they use more moisture, so it 
is good philosophy to save all we can and plant noth- 
ing between the rows to use it up, for when our apple 



178 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

trees arrive at the age of 15 to 20, the precipitation 
about balances the transpiration and the trees are just 
about enabled to hold their own and produce good 
sized fruit. 

Treatment of Old Orchards. 

Now here comes a question. Supposing we find at 
some future time that the trees have grown very large 
and the fruit is becoming small as well as the leaves, 
which are indications of not enough moisture, what 
can we do about it? We can reduce the transpiration 
by trimming back the trees, thinning out the branches, 
or we could cut out every other tree. We can also 
help the situation by fertilizing, making the soil solu- 
tion stronger so that the tree can get along with less 
water. As the trees increase in size they create large 
snowdrifts in the orchard and after a blizzard it is 
nothing unusual to imagine that all the snow on the 
ranch has piled into it; this is a big help in moisture 
accumulation. 

In winter the trees must always be protected from 
rabbits until they are 3 or 4 years old. We buy a bolt 
of wire mosquito screen, 2 or 3 feet wide and cut strips 
6 inches by 2 feet or by 3 feet if the trees are tall 
enough, then we roll these strips (on a table) round 
a broom handle which gives them the right shape to 
snap around the tree. 

Use Varieties Adapted to Your Latitude. 

What varieties of trees or fruit are the best to 
plant? This is a question that must be decided locally 
by the experience of those who have already raised 
fruit in your particular locality and at your altitude ; 
whether they have done so by irrigation cuts no figure, 
for irrigation is rather a handicap to trees, especially in 
the matter of winter-killing. There is one point, how- 
ever, and this is, I believe it best always to choose 
large fruiting, vigorous growing varieties. As far as 
hardiness is concerned the dry farm orchard has the 



DRY FARM HORTICULTURE 179 

advantage. Thousands of irrigated trees are killed 
every winter by ill advised watering. A warm spell 
comes, the sap cells on the south side of the tree be- 
come gorged with liquid, a storm comes down from the 
north, a solid freeze; snap goes the bark. 
Cause of Winter-Killing. 

We cannot expect the sap cells of a tree to hold 
frozen water any better than an iron pipe which will 
burst every time ; altitude increases the bursting power 
of the frozen sap in the same way that it increases the 
bursting power of the arterial pressure in man which 
may cause his nose and ears to bleed at high altitudes ; 
therefore we find that a tree which will stand 40 below 
zero at the coast may winter-kill at 20 below at 4,000, 
and at 10 below at 6,000 feet altitude. 

It is well to bear this in mind when we want to 
send back east or to the old country for some trees of 
those fine apples we used to eat when we were boys. 

Trees will winter in land almost dry which con- 
tains only 2 or 3% above the hygroscopic equivalent. 
I know, because I have done it for experiment. I have 
also wintered trees in cellars with a little dry dirt 
thrown over the roots. 

My wife has wintered geraniums by cutting them 

back, taking them out of the ground, tying them in 

bunches and hanging them on a 2x4 in the cellar. It 

is all nonsense to say trees need ditch water in winter. 

Drouth Does Not Kill Trees. 

When the trees dry out after the winter it is not 
for want of water ; it is because the sap cells are rup- 
tured ; the protoplasm is dead, the sap cannot rise. It 
is very difficult almost impossible for drouth to kill a 
tree of any size because not only are the roots 
away down in the subsoil, perhaps as far as 
the top of the tree is above ground, but the whole 
heart-wood of a tree is a reservoir for the sap cells to 
draw upon in time of need. The sap circulates through 



i8o PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

the sap wood and cambium layers adjoining the bark^ 
making the whole circuit of the tree from root to leaves 
and leaves back to root. The tree grows by successive 
layers forming each year on the outside next the bark ; 
thus the outside layers are gradually covered up and 
becoming inside wood, eventually heart- wood ; as this 
process goes on the inside layers gradually lose their 
protoplasm and become virtually dead, taking no part 
in the raising of the sap or the life of the tree ; but these 
empty wood cells of which the heart-wood is composed 
are fine receptacles for surplus sap and during the wet 
spring weather when there is a surplus of this material 
the overflow finds its way into them and stays there 
imtil needed. Thus we find that all trees are good 
drouth resisters excepting, of course, bottom land trees 
which have become adapted to their environment. The 
same rules which apply to orchard trees also apply to 
shade trees ; there will be no trouble with them if 
planted in rows and cultivated. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

Forestry in the Arid Regions 

IT is estimated that in a very few years our forests 
will become depleted, our lumber supply almost 

used up, unless some policy of conservation is in- 
augurated which will save the day. 

The Forestry Department are doing their best, 
but what can planting every year a few acres of forest 
trees amount to when thousands of square miles are 
burned oflf every season? 

How is this problem solved in other countries? 

One of the greatest countries of the old world for 
conservation of soil, trees, everything, is Germany. 
Conservation is taught in the schools, everybody 
understands it; the man who burns a forest is just as 
much a criminal as the man who burns a village ; the 
man who cuts a sapling to make a 2x4, which in a few 
years might grow into a hundred feet of lumber, is just 
as much a robber as the man who robs a bank. 

There they have laws which have popular senti- 
ment at the back of them. Here we have laws which 
are difficult to enforce because popular sentiment has 
never been educated up to them. 

Campaign of Education Necessary. 

The only way we can change this is by a campaign 
of education. If the forest fires can be prevented, the 
rest is comparatively easy ; but can we prevent them, 
and then reforest the denuded areas? 

It is a big contract, but what other countries have 
done, we can do. 

The forests belong to the nation ; if they are of 
value they should be conserved and not despoiled by 
the lumbermen, the miner and by overstocking with 
cattle. 



i82 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

In some of the provinces of Austria and Germany, 
a law exists that every man who cuts down a tree must 
plant another, and many of the great lumber com- 
panies own their own nurseries. 

The question which concerns us, however, is this : 
Have we as farmers any particular interest in the con- 
servation of the national forests? 

We certainly have, and for many reasons. 
Trees help vegetation because they create a moist 
atmosphere. 

Transpiration of Trees. 

A large Engelmann spruce, for instance, may 
transpire from 300 to 500 gallons of water a day. An 
ordinary sized tree from 50 to 100 gallons. In many 
cases this water comes from great depths from which 
nothing but the roots of a giant tree would ever raise 
it ; therefore we may justly consider a forest of trees as 
an aggregation of pumps, pumping millions of gallons 
of water into the atmosphere from the lower depths 
of the soil. When we appreciate this fact, we do not 
have to strain our imaginations very much to 
perceive that a good sized forest may raise enough 
water every twenty-four hours to supply a fair-sized 
cloudburst. 

Now we do not wish to take part in the dispute 
as to whether vegetation causes more rainfall or not; 
but it assuredly is a fact that this water falls some 
time, somewhere ; but supposing it were possible for it 
all to stay in the atmosphere, even then, nothing could 
be better for the farmer. 

It has been shown by Dr. Alway, Hilgard and 
others that under damp atmospheric conditions crops 
can live and grow in soil containing only 3 or 4% of 
moisture, but under dry atmospheric conditions 6 or 
7% is the limit. No man can doubt the fact that a 
range of mountains covered with forests to the west 
of us from which our winds blow is a moisture produc- 



FORESTRY IN THE ARID REGIONS 183 

ing area of incalculable value to the man who raises 
crops. 

Someone might remark, "This old state is pretty- 
dry anyway." Maybe it is but I have seen others a 
good deal drier, especially farther south where there 
are no trees to the westward. Lakes, reservoirs, irri- 
gating projects and agriculture in general all afford 
moisture, and for this reason there is little doubt that 
settling a countr}^ improves conditions. 

Atmospheric Moisture Important. 

Millions of tons of water which years ago ran of(. 
into the gulches, from thence into the rivers and down 
to the sea, are now caught in the deep plowed land 
and transpired by the crops back into the atmosphere 
again, creating produce during the process. 

Years ago when I first came to Colorado, we 
rarely saw any dew there, but of late years in my 
neighborhood the dews have been so heavy as to seri- 
ously interfere with the haying. It is open to argu- 
ment as to whether all this moisture from different 
sources really increases the rainfall. It would seem 
that it ought to, that a local shower for instance, tak- 
ing place where the humidity is high, would naturally 
precipitate more moisture than where it is low; but it 
could hardly affect the large cyclonic storms which at 
times sweep the continent. 

In order to arrive at anything conclusive on this 
point it would be necessary to compare the records 
for fifty or a hundred years, for meteorological condi- 
tions are the most inconstant thing on earth and a 10 
or 20-year average tells us little or nothing. 
Railroads Engage in Forestry. 

Foreseeing that the timber supply is likely to fall 
short in the future, many of the railroad companies are 
forestalling this condition by planting trees, especially 
the Catalpa for ties. These plantations are not actually 
in the dry farm country, but very near it, some of them 



i84 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

doing well where the precipitation is not much over 
twenty. It is expected that in course of time the trees 
will become large enough to shade the ground, prevent 
weed growth, catch plenty of snow and thus establish 
forest conditions ; take care of themselves in fact. 

Can we do this in the dry country? Probably not 
on much less precipitation than 20 or 25, for we have 
to give the trees so much room on account of moisture 
conditions that it will be hardly possible to obtain both 
the shade and the moisture sufficient for the needs of 
the tree. Nevertheless, I believe there are many waste 
places which seem as if designed by nature for this 
very thing. In the mountains among the rocks and 
gravel where weeds and grass can hardly grow, trees 
once established hold their own and grow right along; 
the reason being that a tree root being perennial gains 
something in size and reach every year, becoming 
stronger and more efficient, a slow but sure process 
which enables it to obtain everything in the way of 
sustenance that can be obtained in such an environ- 
ment, and in some cases to extend its roots into good 
soil below the rocks entirely out of the reach of other 
vegetation. 

Waste Land Good For Trees. 

Therefore, wherever we can find rocky gravelly 
hills, there is a very good chance even on the plains 
of establishing forest conditions with certain trees, 
especially of the conifers, the varieties of which we 
will give later on. 

In a previous article I have already shown that 
we can accept it as an absolute fact that in proper soil 
with the requisite plowing and cultivation we can grow 
any upland trees which will not winter-kill anywhere 
on our prairies where the winds are not too severe. 
Reforesting the mountains with the varieties which 
belong in that, their own natural environment, should 
be a comparatively easy task. 



FORESTRY IN THE ARID REGIONS 185 

All dry farm work depends on the accumulation 
and conservation of moisture, so must what we might 
term dry forestry. 

On the mountain slopes which are not too steep 
we prefer the terrace method, which consists in run- 
ning hollow terraces across the slope about 50 or 60 
feet apart to catch the precipitation as it comes down 
the mountain side. These terraces are made with 
plows and road graders a few feet wide and hollow 
toward the center to hold the water, and the trees 
planted well towards the inside. 

To conserve the moisture after it is caught, rocks, 
boulders, rotten wood, pine needles, or in fact any foli- 
age which happens to be handy can be used as a mulch 
and no further attention is necessary. The advantage 
of this method is obvious, if the terraces are say 60 
or 70 feet apart, then each tree gets the drainage of 60 
or 70 feet of slope ; this is plenty to keep it going, and 
once established the trees easily hold their own in their 
natural environment. 

Where the slopes are too steep for terracing, each 
tree can be hand planted at the apex of a v-shaped 
embankment which will catch more or less run-of¥ ac- 
cording to its size. 

Forest Tree Seedlings. 

In humid countries some areas where the condi- 
tions are favorable are sometimes reforested by seed- 
ing; but the seeds of conifers have many peculiarities 
with regard to germination which are hard to over- 
come even under nursery conditions, and this method 
is therefore hardly feasible for general practice in the 
arid zone. 

Therefore we find ourselves limited to the planting 
of either nursery trees or forest seedlings. 

Which are the best? 

The Germans as usual are the greatest adepts in 
this line of work and find no difficulty in raising all 



i86 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

our mountain evergreens from seed by the hundreds 
of thousand. 

In Erfurt, Germany, we can buy all we want of 
our young forest trees, raised from seed, for a dollar 
or two a hundred. They send men to the Rocky Moun- 
tains every year to gather these seeds which they ship 
back to their nurseries and there propagate them. 

Our eastern nurserymen buy the little trees about 
5 inches long every spring by the thousand, claiming 
that they can purchase them cheaper than they can 
raise them. 

I tried out a lot of these trees one year and found 
they needed plenty of moisture and shade in order to 
establish them, and were not at all suitable for moun- 
tain work. 

This leaves us nothing but the forest seedlings for 
reforesting and this is the true solution of the problem 
as far as the arid zone is concerned. 

Here and there in the forest reservations we find 
patches of thousands of young trees from 6 inches to 
3 feet high running sometimes 5,000 to the acre ; some 
reservations have few ; some have simply millions. 

Years ago there was a man in Denver, we used to 
call him Evergreen Dexter, who used to make a busi- 
ness of planting these young trees in the gardens of the 
city, and 90% of them lived. 

Andrews of Boulder, is in this business today. I 
had him sack me up some Yellow pine, Douglas fir and 
Juniper and ship them to my ranch to plant on a rocky 
hill which I terraced ; they are all alive but one ; but 
I would say this, if men can make a business of this 
work and find it profitable, then there is no question 
but that it can also be done on a large scale by the 
National Government. There is little trouble in trans- 
planting evergreens by those who understand it; the 
trick of doing it successfully consists in taking up a 
small block of earth with the roots. 



FORESTRY IN THE ARID REGIONS 187 

Why Evergreens Often Die. 

All the conifers contain a certain amount of resin 
and turpentine, what the farmers call pitch ; this pitch 
acts as an anti-freezing mixture and accounts for the 
extreme hardiness of these trees ; but it also causes 
the roots to be extremely sensitive when exposed to 
the air, for the turpentine being very volatile evapor- 
ates rapidly, leaving the resin in the roots congealed, 
which interferes in some way with the life processes 
of the tree ; probably plugs up the ducts and prevents 
circulation of the sap. It is bad for any tree to have 
its roots exposed to the atmosphere but to the ever- 
greens it means certain death. 

Forest seedlings can be easily and safely trans- 
planted with the double shovel tree planter ; this imple- 
ment is made on the plan of the post hole digger. The 
two shovels go into the ground on either side of the 
seedling, then the handles are brought together and 
locked and the little trees raised out of the ground — 
root, dirt and all. 

The holes may be prepared a thousand miles away, 
the trees shipped in the transplanters by freight, 
dropped in the holes at their final resting place and 
the transplanters shipped back for another lot. 

The transplanting of these trees has been done by 
hundreds of men and can be done by anyone who is 
careful ; but if the dirt should by accident fall off the 
roots the tree should be thrown away. The best sized 
trees for transplanting are those from 6 inches to 2 
feet. Any sized conifer, however, can be moved from 
one place to another ; it is simply a question of taking 
enough dirt and roots with it, a tree 7 feet high re- 
quiring nearly a ton. 

Best Time to Transplant. 

The best time of the year to transplant evergreens 
is at the same time as any trees, before the new leaves 
appear while the tree is dormant. Some have been sue- 



i88 PARSONS ON DRY FARMING 

cessfully moved in the dead of winter with their roots 
imbedded in a solid block of frozen dirt. 

The Douglas fir, called also red spruce, and the 
yellow pine are the easiest of the lumber trees to raise 
and are magnificent drouth resisters, often wintering 
in ground where there is no perceptible moisture. 

For ornament there is nothing like the juniper, 
sometimes called the white cedar; it is found even in 
the deserts and holds its own with the sage brush in 
the wastes of Oregon and Utah. Any of these and also 
the silver spruce and Norway spruce can be raised on 
any dry farm without irrigation, and when not obtain- 
able from the mountains may be secured from almost 
any nursery. On the dry farm, however, evergreens 
should not be planted in adobe. 

Drouth-Resistant Trees. 

Among deciduous trees some great drouth resisters 
are the honey locust, black locust, Russian olive, elm, 
black walnut, catalpa and silver poplar. Any of these 
can be raised easily with regular cultivation. The 
silver poplar makes a very quickly growing windbreak 
and may be planted pretty close for that purpose, even 
6 or 8 feet apart, but plenty of room, at least 20 feet, 
must be allowed between the rows. The same with the 
locust which have some advantage over the other trees 
in the fact that if for any reason they are killed back, 
they nearly always sprout again from the root. 

In choosing trees to plant, however, winter-killing 
must always be considered as well as resistance to 
drouth, for different localities differ somewhat in this 
respect ; but the farmer can usually obtain this informa- 
tion from the neighbors, the nurseries, the experiment 
stations or even city parks in his state or vicinity. 



Ask 

The Dakota Farmer 



THE DAKOTA FARMER is ever ready 
and willing to assist its readers in 
solving any of the problems of 
farming and farm life that may con- 
front them. Our services in this 
respect are w^ithout cost to our sub- 
scribers. We have at our service a 
corps of the best agricultural, live 
stock and legal authorities, and their 
services are available to subscribers 
v^ithout cost. Our interest in our 
readers does not end in a signed sub- 
scription receipt. 



Ask The Dakota Farmer 

Aberdeen, S. D. 



